The California Association of Realtors predicts that 2024 will be a better year for the California housing market for both buyers and sellers.
According to Manage Casa, a property management software company, 2024 is expected to bring falling mortgage rates, rising prices, economic expansion, and demand for homes in California.
“We anticipate that 2024 is going to be another solid year in real estate. There's much demand in San Luis Obispo County,” said Bryn Britton, a broker associate for Richardson Sotheby's.
Britton says the number of real estate transactions from 2022 to 2023 was down around 20% in SLO County, and it might have to do with interest rates.
“People that bought in the last several years are sitting on a mortgage with maybe a 3% interest rate. We saw so many hikes this past year that it became a little bit expensive for some people to move,” Britton said.
One of the few exceptions was homeowner Mike Chen who said it was good timing for him and his family to purchase a home in San Luis Obispo in September of 2022.
“We were lucky enough to purchase this home just over a year ago before the rates started to increase,” Chen said.
Britton says if interest rates get back into the 5% range, it might become more manageable for people on the Central Coast to buy and sell.
“If we can bring those interest rates back into the fives, so it allows the affordability for people to shift from one property to another, I think we'll see a really strong market and give a lot of people, first-time homeowners, an opportunity to get into the real estate market,” Britton said.
