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Fox – 5 Atlanta
After several consecutive years of stagnation, there are signs that the sluggish housing market is finally starting to pick up steam.
The number of Americans buying homes increased significantly in February, and March could be another strong month, helped by a temporary drop in mortgage rates.
Existing home sales rose 1.7% in February, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced on March 10th. Inventories are improving, giving buyers more options, but also suggesting sellers have more confidence in the market. And while prices rose slightly this month, they remained relatively calm.
“Home prices are improving and consumers are responding,” said Lawrence Yun, the lobby group’s chief economist. “Still, there is a long way to go before trading activity returns to pre-pandemic levels.”
In the years before the pandemic, sales were in the mid-5 million range. However, mortgage rates plummeted as mortgage rates soared and the buying frenzy due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) came to a halt. If February’s purchasing pace is maintained throughout 2026, the number of vehicles purchased will be 4.09 million. Sales were also better than in January, but down from a year ago.
Housing stakeholders were heartened by the fact that mortgage rates fell below a key psychological threshold in early February, bringing the national average to 5.98%. Although this situation did not last long, and the spike in inflation caused by the war between the US and Iran will likely continue to push interest rates higher in the coming weeks, it may have triggered small panic buying in some parts of the country, reflecting pent-up demand from both buyers and sellers.
Will there be another bidding war in the housing market?
James Deskins is a broker with The HomeBuyer’s Advocate in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area. On a Friday during the first week of March, Deskins showed clients four homes. “At least two of them had multiple offers right away,” he said. He and his client came in second place by bidding 10% higher than one of the companies’ bids.
“So, is that a hint of what’s to come?” he asked rhetorically. Or, he wondered, was it more likely a combination of lower borrowing costs (interest rates were in the 5.6% to 5.7% range in his area) and the first good weather in a while that had people itching to get out of the house and hit the market?
“The return of existing home sales in February to the 2025 average suggests an underlying recovery, given that sales were likely depressed by the impact of Winter Storm Fern in late January,” Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in an analysis following the release of the NAR report.
“The decline in the average 30-year mortgage rate since the beginning of the year suggests that existing home sales will soon increase to 4.4 million units, the highest level since mid-2022,” Toombs added.
Mr. Deskins has been in the real estate industry for a long time and knows that regardless of whether it involves a specific number or interest rate, buyers typically reach a point where they decide they can’t wait any longer.
“Everything I see, hear and read indicates that the market in 2026 will be better than it was in 2025. That means higher sales and a more balanced market,” he said. “We all hope so.”
