In late 2019, the median number of days that a house was on the market was 51, according to the real-estate site Redfin.
In other words, houses have been selling at higher prices, more quickly—and buyers haven’t been able to find much relief by broadening their search to other areas, because this is happening in much of the country.
On the supply side, the number of houses being built in the 2010s was about half of what it was in the early 2000s, which means fewer houses available now.
Take these together, and you end up with more people wanting to buy houses than there are houses to buy.
And demand for spacious suburban houses was pushed upward as many Americans, especially remote workers, turned their attention away from downtown urban areas.
For that reason, the experts I spoke with recently didn’t expect that prices would stop climbing anytime soon, though they did expect prices to climb less steeply in 2022.
One thing that could somewhat dampen price increases—as well as the bidding wars that have pleased homeowners and exasperated buyers—is a rise in interest rates, which is expected to happen this year.
If you could magically choose what the market is like when you buy a house, you’d maximize your wealth and minimize your stress by picking a time when prices are low and going to shoot up in the future, when interest rates are low, and when you don’t have to make a rushed decision or enter a bidding war.
If you’re buying a house, he advised, it should be because you want to live in it for at least five years, and ideally many more—which also will mean that even if prices fluctuate, you have a better chance of your investment appreciating over time.
“There’s not going to be an optimal point when prices dip and you can jump in,” Jenny Schuetz, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me.
One big caveat is that in many markets, demand has been so high—and supply, so low—that some buyers have been willing to waive the contingencies on their offer, such as finalizing their purchase after a home inspection.
This approach to home-buying is not meant to discount the very real consequences of purchasing a house at a suboptimal time.
So set that strategizing aside and try not to think about it—if you buy a house and stay there for a while, you’ll be better positioned to ride out whatever wildness the future holds.