I have been reading economic and housing news so that I can make some predictions for the 2019 housing market. We all know that nothing stays the same. In St. Paul we have had a shortage of homes for sale for the last six years and prices have gone back up to what they were before the great recession.
It looks like 2019 will be kind of like 2018. It will be another good year for home sellers. If for some reason the number of buyers decreases, which seems unlikely, the number of homes on the market will rise and prices will start to level off.
It is also possible that the number of homes on the market could start to climb if more homeowners decide to sell. There are a lot of homeowners who are 65 or older. Will they put their homes on the market? According to the National Association of Realtors, the “typical home seller in 2018 was 55 years old”
To people who are young 65 seems terribly old but it isn’t too old for homeownership and I don’t see any evidence that that large group of people who are 65 or better are all going to sell at once. National census statistics indicate that at least 75% of those 65 and older live in homes that they own.
People who are over 65 generally don’t move very often and they are not the oldest homeowners. What about the 65 to 100-year-old homeowner? Statisticians like to lump people who are 55 to 100 years old into one huge category and make assumptions about their housing needs. Big mistake.
Experts have been predicting a housing sell off as baby boomers age or die off. The generation spans 18 years. Taking that into consideration it is possible that there will be an increase in the number of homes for sale as baby boomers hit their mid 70’s? 80’s? 90’s or 100’s?
It seems like there should be plenty of buyers for those houses but if the number of homes on the market goes way up prices will go down.
As for the immediate future, there is still a shortage of homes for sale in St. Paul and plenty of willing buyers. The number of homes on the market will have to go way up before the market starts to shift to more of a buyers market. I don’t think that will happen in 2019 or in 2020 for that matter. Maybe in the late ‘2020s or early 2030s when the oldest baby boomers hit their mid-80’s, there will be a gradual sell-off.
I see no convincing evidence that there is going to be any kind of a housing sell-off as soon as 2020. If there is a sell-off it will be closer to 2030.
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