In June alone, the purchase of single-family homes in the USA decreased by about 60,000, or about 15 percent, which is the biggest drop since April 2020. Then the first wave of the pandemic brought an atmosphere of fear, so many people gave up on large investments, is one of the conclusions from Redfin's analysis. assessment services on the real estate market.

Now the pandemic has been replaced by inflation, which has reached 9.1 percent in the US, which is the biggest jump since November 1981.

According to the analysis, the fact that the Federal Reserve (the American central bank) increased interest rates by 75 basis points in June, so the average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to six percent, also influenced the withdrawal of buyers.

Although the media covered the news with the comments "the end of the boom" and "the game is over", experts still doubt whether there will be a complete collapse or whether this is just a continuation of the slowdown in growth. The German Spiegel also hinted at a downward trend in real estate prices, which they registered in at least a dozen of the largest cities.

- In our country, the drop in prices will not be reflected so quickly. We have a slower realization, we have a very small number of credit requests, because banks hardly ask for real estate valuations for which they would approve a loan. Otherwise, credit buyers participate with about 20 percent in the Serbian market, while 80 percent of transactions are for "cash". This slowdown in traffic was caused by the announcement that there will be an increase in interest rates and the expectation that this growth will be significant, and most banks have a variable rate for home loans. It is true that there is a fixed one, but it is much higher - real estate market analyst Kaća Lazarevic tells Danas.

She emphasizes that the market lacks apartments of 50 to 60 square meters in the inner city, that there are new buildings, but they are still high priced and often not of sufficient quality.

- The stoppage among customers was caused by bombastic and completely meaningless announcements that we will die of hunger, we will not have electricity and the like. Everyone is now waiting to see what will happen in the fall. Large buyers have mostly withdrawn, and those who build are also cautious, because they do not know whether the calculation they have made will come true. Ready-made houses are still very difficult to sell, but there is a great demand for plots. There, the supply is exhausted, so plots on the outskirts of the city are sold for two to three thousand euros each - says Lazarevic.

He adds that real estate rental is still a dynamic area, because the rumor that Russians and Ukrainians are buying apartments en masse is not exactly true. It is true that that first wave has passed, they have come and gone. And they prefer to rent rather than buy, which has raised the appetites of apartment owners, even though there are no such well-paying tenants anymore, Lazarevic says.

Source: sebizz