Market Update 04.21.23

01  Building permits dropped by 8.8% to 1.41 million, lower than the 1.45 million estimates. Housing Starts came in at 1.42 million - down 0.8% - yet higher than estimates of 1.4 million.

02  Mortgage rates on the 30-year fixed rose to 6.6%.

03  Half a Billion Dollar Listing? I have often spoken about how the art on the walls of the very wealthy make their home prices seem rather meek:  in Rome, the Ludovisi family has owned a beautiful home since the early 1600s now valued over $500 million.....not because of the real estate. The home features the only ceiling mural 16th-century Italian Renaissance master Caravaggio has ever known to have painted. (NY POST)

04  The US median home price dropped 3.3% between March 2022 and March 2023, to $400,528. Pandemic-era boomtowns and pricy tech hubs fueled the drop, with prices in Boise, Idaho, plunging by 15.4% from a year earlier. (Boise saw 40% price escalations in 2021!) Austin followed, with prices falling 13.7% while Sacramento experienced the third-highest decline at 11.9%. Boise also experienced the largest drop in pending home sales in March, notching a 78.8% year-over-year decline.  (INMAN)

 

05 The seven “cleanest” cities, which had zero days of high particle pollution or ozone and are among the 25 cities with the lowest year-round particle pollution: