Cooper: Rates, Inventory Drive ‘Red Hot’ Housing Market
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWhile the pandemic may be prompting some to delay or cancel home buying plans, one Indianapolis realtor says the housing market is continuing to roll, fueled by low mortgage rates and tight inventories. “We’ve really got a 10th grade economics lesson playing out in front of us,” said Keller Williams Realty’s Greg Cooper. “We have massively low interest rates, in some cases in the 2.6 to 2.7 percent marks, and we have a low inventory and those two things have continued to drive really a red-hot housing market in most price points,” said Cooper, who estimates there is currently about 40 percent less home inventory than five years ago.
Cooper discussed the market and pandemic-related trends on this weekend’s edition of Inside INdiana Business.
Cooper says he expects mortgage rates to remain low, not rising above three percent through the end of the year, but adds the impact of long term unemployment and a presidential election create a level of uncertainty in the housing market.
Cooper says demand for work-from-home, school-from-home space “has skyrocketed” in the last sixty days, with the dramatic increase in remote working and learning brought on by the pandemic.
He says the ability to work from anywhere is boosting the number of relocations to Indiana, including from high-tax states like California. “The Los Angeles market, the San Francisco market, the Sacramento market, a lot of people are moving here from the west coast, because the cost of living is terrific and they can work from anywhere.”