Home shoppers may be able to breathe a sigh of relief. They’re facing fewer bidding wars for the homes they want to buy.
About 10% of offers written by Redfin real estate agents on behalf of their customers faced a bidding war in August, down from higher than 42% a year earlier, according to the brokerage’s index that measures competitive offers nationwide. August’s percentage is also the lowest bidding-war rate on record since at least 2011.
The national rate of bidding wars peaked at 59% in March 2018, but has since been dropping.
“Despite remaining near three-year lows, mortgage rates have failed to bring enough buyers to the market to rev up competition for homes this summer,” says Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Recession fears have been enough to spook some would-be buyers from making the big financial commitment of a home purchase. But assuming a recession doesn’t arrive this fall or winter, consumers will likely adjust to the new ‘normal’ of continued volatility in the stock and global markets, and the people who need and want to make a move will take advantage of low mortgage rates. As a result, I still expect home-buying competition to pick back up in the new year.”
In August, San Francisco was the most competitive market in Redfin’s analysis. Thirty-one percent of offers written by Redfin agents on behalf of their clients faced a bidding war last month. That is down from 73.5% a year earlier.
Other markets seeing the highest percentage of bidding wars in August were in San Diego (18.4%); Las Vegas (17.1%); Boston (15%); and Los Angeles (14.4%).
Meanwhile, the least competitive markets were Atlanta (2.4% of customer offers faced a bidding war); Miami (3.1%); Raleigh, N.C. (4.2%); Philadelphia (4.3%); and Chicago (5%).
