The housing market is on the rise again, and it is all thanks to the efforts of first time home buyers.
After two straight months of declines, September’s report by the National Association of Realtors showed a bigger than expected surge in the home buyer’s market. They believe this is due to the efforts of first time home buyers, as they accounted for over 34% of transactions last month.
This is especially impressive considering only one third of all people looking to buy new homes are first time home buyers.
The NAR’s report shows that sales of existing homes in September rose 3.2 percent to an annual rate of 5.47 million units. This statistic was well over economist’s predictions of an increase to 5.35 million units.
“Today’s reports reaffirm that the jobs and housing markets are moving in the right direction. That’s important because the jobs and housing markets are going to be critical to supporting growth in 2017,” said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics to Reuters.
This positive trend suggests that the labor market remains strong, which is an important factor underpinning in the housing market. However, economists still believe that they need the housing market to grow another 10 points to make it a robust, well-established sector.
However, the increase in existing home sales was broad all over the board, even though the amount of housing inventory remained tight and non-varied. There were 2.04 million previously owned homes on the market, up from 1.5% in August.
This report came on the heels of a separate report that showed a jump in single-family housing starts and overall building permits in September.
So go on Millennials, relish in the brand newness of your home. The housing market thanks you.