“Coupled with low inventory, a busy mortgage market may have added hurdles to an already challenging housing market,” Berchick added.
At the same time, mortgage buyers were 50% more likely to report facing at least one mortgage application denial before ultimately being approved in 2021 than they were in the previous year, he said.
With so much uncertainty in the economy and unfavorable rigors in the market, “people just pause their plans,” he said.
Those who are looking for a home are also encountering some of the highest prices ever recorded. The typical home hit $312,000 in 2021, up 19% over the last year, and prices are forecasted to rise another 13% in 2022.
Prices are rising not only in big cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., but in smaller mid-sized metropolitan areas, according to data compiled by Realtor.com, an online real estate listing agent. The hottest markets in the U.S. are in Manchester, N.H., Burlington, N.C., east of Greensboro, and Eureka, Calif, the website reported.
One of the biggest drivers in keeping Americans sedentary is an aging population, according to a report released earlier this year by the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL). The country has never had so many residents over the age of 65, the report said.
Folks who are age 65 and older numbered 54.1 million in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the report said. They represented 16% of the population, more than one in every seven Americans.
It’s an age when people are most likely to own their own home and feel less pressure to move, which keeps a growing segment of the population in the homes they own now, Russell said.
While inventory dwindles and prices rise, the Census Bureau found the total number of housing units grew by just 6.6% between 2010 and 2020, while the number of vacant units dropped by 8.6%, a sign of a market that is tightening rather than expanding.
Population growth has surpassed growth in the housing supply and there are no signs that will reverse in the near term, Berchick said.