Total retail sales continued to steadily increase from the beginning of the pandemic through Q2 2021 as sales increased from $1.3 trillion in Q2 2020 to $1.6 trillion in Q2 2021, for a year-over-year growth rate of 28.2%.
National Association of REALTORS® has created the Homebuilders' Local Opportunity Index (HLOI), which measures both short-term and long-term opportunities for homebuilders at the local level, with the purpose of identifying the areas where homebuilders can build more homes with less risk for their business.
At the national level, housing affordability slightly inclined in July 2021 compared to the previous month.
Housing affordability, the desire to live in less dense areas, and in larger homes with the opportunity to work from home, and the demand from millennials as they start to form households and raise families are important factors that play into the decision of where to live and buy a home.
The National Association of REALTORS® forecasts existing home sales to drop by 10% in the last quarter of 2021.
The demand for apartments continues to heat up, marked by record high absorption and rent growth and low vacancy rate.
Florida metros are hot! According to NAR’s commercial metro market reports for 390 markets, Florida has five of the top ten markets with the strongest overall conditions in the apartment, office, industrial, retail, and hotel markets, according to NAR’s Commercial Market Conditions Index ranking.
The jobs recovery in August was light with only 235,000 more jobs. From the cyclical low point during the total lockdown in April 2020, 17 million jobs have been recovered. Still, another 5 million is needed to just reach back to the prior peak right before the pandemic. The latest unemployment rate was 5.2% with wages rising by 4.8% over the year.
Mortgage rates continued to remain below 2.9% for the last eight straight weeks. Specifically, according to the finance mortgage provider Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was unchanged from the previous week at 2.87%.
Despite the economic downturn as a result of COVID-19, the industrial sector has been the commercial real estate darling as it continues to be one of the more resilient assets, supported by the growth in e-commerce and last mile demand.
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