After a tumultuous couple of years, the US real estate market is slowly but surely starting to swing back in favor of buyers.
Pandemic boomtowns like Phoenix and Denver have seen their home prices decline steadily, according to data from First American Corporation, a financial services company. As of November 2022, Denver's home prices have declined by about 4% while Phoenix's have declined by almost 8%. A similar story can be told about other western markets like San Francisco and Las Vegas, and Seattle.
At least 28 million Americans say they plan on buying a home in 2023, according to NerdWallet's latest home buying survey. But the prospects of buying a home vary widely depending on which market a buyer is looking at.
Odeta Kushi, the deputy chief economist at First American, told Insider that the data is a lagging indicator of price activity in the markets because the sales contracts were captured months earlier. However, Kushi added that prices are still likely falling in these markets, although the full scope of the declines isn't captured in First American's data.
"During the pandemic, the story was that there was a 'national housing market' because nearly every market favored homesellers," Kushi said. "In 2023, I think we'll start to see that real estate is local again."