Surely many of you have heard of Lawrence Yun who has been the Chief Economist for NAR since September 2008. Whenever I see some predictions or opinion articles by him, I make sure I read them. He was a cool head back in the Great Recession providing Realtors with the facts and figures of the housing market without the doom, gloom and emotion. 

In this recent news article from FloridaRealtors.org, they summarized the Lawrence Yun lectures at the 2024 Realtors Legislative Meetings. The title of the article is Yun Predicts Rising Existing-Home Sales in 2024 (click here to read).

Some interesting excerpts from the article I found are as follows:

• Interest rates will fall in the long term.
• 2024 existing-home sales will increase by 9% over 2023 sales.
• 2025 existing-home sales will increase 13.2% over 2024.
• In 8 of the next 10 years, there will be further increases in existing-home sale transactions.
• Rents will calm down which will keep the Consumer Price Index lower, prompting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.
• There are 6 million more jobs in the USA than there were in the pre-Covid highs which is keeping home prices up.
• In 2022, the median net worth of homeowners was $396,200 while the median net worth of renters was $10,400, and because of this he says "you have to buy a home in order to build wealth".

I thought the following information was pretty crazy from the article, as well: "The U.S. currently has 40 million more total payroll jobs and 70 million more people than in 1995. However, annual existing-home sales in 2023 experienced their worst year since 1995 . . . and in 2024, existing-home sales rates have struggled to climb above last year's level." This statement sounds to me that with his prediction that 2024 will increase 9% over 2023, this bodes well for the last half of 2024.

Yun also stated "…The Federal Reserve has delayed rate cuts. I would have thought that, by now, rates would be lower and rate cuts would have begun.  Whatever rate cut the Federal Reserve does not do this year will simply get pushed back to 2025." This makes sense that interest rate cuts are coming; we just have to hang on until then.

One more positive statement, "People may get used to permanently high inflation, and people will be looking for an inflation hedge. Real estate is proven."

I am going to keep this article and provide it to clients and customers that are on the fence about buying. It is also good ammunition for your contacts that are currently renting. It is obvious that real estate transactions have slowed recently, but if Yun is correct, transactions will be increasing soon, and in 2025, they will be increasing significantly. Your contacts that are waiting for housing prices to decline may want to reconsider and start looking now.