Another Hot housing forecast for 2019 by Realtor.com

[Terry Lao]

Another housing forecast for 2019 by Realtor.com and time to make your predictions. The median national prediction is slowdown in sales of -2.0% and appreciation of 2.2%. All the top 10 cities beat the national average which is why the cities are on the list. My money's on Las Vegas for at least this year.

Do you agree or disagree?

Terry

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenparis/2019/01/16...

[Chris Mason]

Why so much Vegas optimism? It's an economy based on corporate event hosting and gambling. Both of those are predicated on corporate or personal disposable income.

Prediction: now that listing agents are setting seller expectations lower, buyers should/will be able to negotiate for more based on inspection results once in escrow in cases wherein the inspection reveals issues that the seller did not previously disclose. 

We're already seeing that in the SF Bay Area... Anecdote: property down near Santa Cruz, buyer's agent was able to negotiate $30k in home repairs done by the seller prior to closing. Work was done, deal is closed. Six months ago that would have been unheard of and borderline unbelievable. 

My last prediction was a little too optimistic for buyers. I predicted that "we are now in a buyer's market," but reality is that it feels that we're settling into a "balanced" market.