Are the Big Paydays Coming to an End? Home Seller Profits Drop

Home Seller Profits Drop

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After years of raking in record amounts, home sellers’ profits have begun to dip.

Homeowners still made quite a bit on the sales of their single-family houses and condos in the third quarter of the year, according to a recent ATTOM report. The real estate data firm found sellers earned a hefty 54.6% more than what they originally paid for their properties—but that was down from the 57.6% they pocketed in the previous quarter.

The report was based on home sale deeds, foreclosure filings, and loan data.

The declines were due to pricing slipping for the first time in nearly three years, according to ATTOM. Rising mortgage interest rates pushed up monthly housing payments by so much that many buyers can’t afford to spend as much on a home if they can afford one at all. Rates more than doubled from the low 3% range at the start of the year to nearly 7%, according to Freddie Mac. Rates have hammered the housing market, resulting in many sellers cutting prices or listing their properties for a little less and raising fears of another housing bubble.

“Rapidly rising mortgage rates have not only resulted in fewer home sales, but have begun to impact home prices as well,” Rick Sharga, ATTOM’s executive vice president of market intelligence, said in a statement. “With rates the highest they’ve been in over 20 years, homebuyers face serious affordability challenges. … It’s very likely that home prices will continue to weaken in many markets in the coming months.”

Sellers stayed in their homes for an average of 5.98 years, according to the report.

The biggest profit declines were in the Claremont, NH, metropolitan area, where sellers went from earning 72.8% in the second quarter of the year to 52.4% in the third quarter. It was followed by San Francisco, where profits fell from 85.1% to 65.4%, and Prescott, AZ, where they went from 86.3% to 70.8%. (Metros include the main city and surrounding towns, suburbs, and smaller urban areas.)

Profits rose the most in the Macon, GA, metro, from 44.7% to 82.4%; Rockford, IL, from 29.9% to 41.8%; and Davenport, IA, from 29.2% to 41.8%.

Cash buyers, many of whom were investors, still made up more than a third of all sales, representing about 35.7% of buyers in the third quarter. That was down just slightly from 36% in the previous quarter.

Institutional investors, which are the big iBuyers, hedge funds, pension funds, and other financial powerhouses, purchased about 1 in every 15 properties in the third quarter of the year. Their purchases were down a bit from the same time a year earlier.

“If the Federal Reserve’s objective was to slow down the housing market, it has succeeded spectacularly,” Sharga said. “The market has gone from double-digit annual home price appreciation to below 3%, and declining quarter-over-quarter prices. But the impact of 6% and 7% mortgage rates means that many homes are still out of the reach of prospective buyers, even with prices declining slightly.”

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