The housing market is showing some sings of cooling, which may be making more home buyers more optimistic in a competitive market. Thirty-two percent of consumers said in August it’s a good time to buy, up from 28% in July, according to Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey, a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults. That marks the first sign of progress in home buyer sentiment since March.

However, 63% of consumers still say it’s a difficult time to buy. Higher home prices and scant housing stock have had consumers concerned about the housing market. Bidding wars have become frustrating to those who keep losing out.

Mark Palm, Fannie Mae’s vice president and deputy chief economist, said the increase in the “good time to buy” survey’s component is likely to be a reflection of the favorable mortgage rate environment and the growing expectation that home price growth will begin to moderate over the next year.

Also, new listings increased 5% in the 50 largest metros, which could be opening more options to home buyers, according to realtor.com®’s newly released Monthly Housing Report. “Low mortgage rates have motivated home buyers to endure this year’s challenging market and now some buyers are starting to see their persistence pay off,” said Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. “This month, new sellers added more affordable entry-level homes to the market compared to last year, while others began adjusting listing prices to better compete with an uptick in inventory.”

New Listings Jump 5.1%; Price Adjustments Moderate

Meanwhile, sellers are still profiting from the hot housing market. Seventy-three percent of consumers surveyed by Fannie Mae said it’s a good time to sell. They’re seeing higher home appreciation: Median existing-home prices climbed nearly 18% in July over the past year, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

Here’s a closer look at findings from Fannie Mae’s latest National Housing Survey, reflecting August data:

• 32% of consumers say it’s a good time to buy a home, up from 28% in July.
• 73% of consumers say it’s a good time to sell, down from 75% last month.
• 40% of consumers believe home prices will rise over the next 12 years, down from 46%.
• 53% of consumers believe mortgage rates will decrease over the next year, down from 57%.
• 82% of consumers say they are not concerned about losing their job over the next year, down from 84%.
• 26% of consumers say their household income is significantly higher than it was a year ago, down slightly from 27%. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said their household income is about the same.

Those who live in areas hit by Hurricane Ida will next face the challenge of navigating insurance. Many standard home insurance and home-rental policies don’t cover flood insurance. Flood insurance is usually a separate policy.

About 40% to 50% of the flood damages from Hurricane Ida are covered by insurance, Tom Larsen, insurance solutions principal for CoreLogic, told MarketWatch. He says that does mark an improvement in the percentage of insured compared to other large-scale disasters like hurricanes Harvey and Katrina.

Hurricane Ida continues to batter the U.S., moving up along the Northeast causing storms and catastrophic flooding. New York saw more than three inches of rain per hour fall in Central Park from Ida, prompting flooding in the city. Ida first made landfall on the southeastern coast of Louisiana as a Category 4 storm on Aug. 29. It is tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. mainland.

CoreLogic has estimated about $27 billion to $40 billion in insured and uninsured losses for residential and commercial properties from Hurricane Ida. More than 90% of those losses are expected to come from Louisiana, where thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed. Nearly 1 million homes and businesses remain without power in southeast Louisiana, as of Thursday.

“Too many people and too many areas are still unprotected and saw a storm surge and flooding that was devastating,” President Biden said in a press conference on Thursday.

A 2020 survey from Policygenius found that 53% of homeowners mistakenly believe that floods are covered under standard home insurance plans.

Homeowners with federally-backed mortgages are required to purchase flood insurance if they live in an area designated as high-risk for flooding. But renters, homeowners, and those without federally backed mortgages are not required to, as well as those who don’t live in designated high-risk areas.

Flood insurance usually costs about $700 a year, on average, with coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program, according to FEMA.

The National Association of REALTORS® offers a Disaster Preparation Resources page at nar.realtor to help real estate professionals and their clients who have been affected in the hurricane and from flooding damage to find the resources they need.

Mortgage rates remain below 3% for the eighth consecutive week, but economists believe job growth will determine how much longer they’ll likely stay so low. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.87% this week, Freddie Mac reports.

“Job growth seems to be very critical for the following several months as it will indicate when the Fed’s tapering will likely start,” Nadia Evangelou, a senior economist and director of forecasting for the National Association of REALTORS®, writes for the association’s blog. “There is ample talk about the Fed cutting its monthly bond purchases before the end of the year.”

The Fed’s asset purchases have helped keep rates lower than they otherwise would be, Evangelou adds. “Expect mortgage rates to rise further when the Fed will raise interest rates since rising interest rates increase the cost of mortgages,” she notes. But “that won’t likely happen until the economy hits full employment.”

Nearly 1.9 million jobs were added during June and July. However, only 235,000 jobs were added in August. Approximately 17 million have been recovered since lockdown in April 2020, but another 5 million are still needed to reach the country’s prior peak before the pandemic, says Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

The latest unemployment rate was 5.2% with wages rising by 4.8% over the year, Yun says, however, the consumer price inflation of 5.2% is “eating away at those wage gains.”

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending Sept. 2:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.87%, with an average 0.6 point, unchanged from last week. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 2.93%.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.18%, with an average 0.6 point, rising slightly from a 2.17% average last week. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 2.42%.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.43%, with an average 0.3 point, increasing from last week’s 2.42% average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 2.93%.

Freddie Mac reports average commitment rates along with average points to better reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining a mortgage.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that it was extending the time that owner-occupants can view and purchase foreclosure listings over investor competition.

Individuals, families, and nonprofits now have 30 days—up from 20 days—to exclusively bid on real-estate-owned properties under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s First Look programs. This will allow them to bid on foreclosure properties ahead of when these homes will be available for investor purchase.

The First Look Program, launched in 2009, was created to promote owner occupancy and neighborhood stabilization.

“Extending the amount of time owner-occupants have to bid on an REO property, without competition is especially important for neighborhood preservation while the supply of homes for sale is severely limited,” says Sandra L. Thompson, acting director of FHFA. “By providing greater access to affordable homeownership opportunities, expanding the First Look Program is one step in addressing the gap between the supply and demand of single-family homes.”

More homeowners are listing their homes for sale, which is opening up options for anxious home buyers who have faced fierce competition the last few months over a limited housing stock.

New listings rose 5.1% in the 50 largest metros. The largest increases were in Columbus, Ohio (up 25.6%); Louisville, Ky. (up 22.8%); and Cleveland (up 21.6%), according to realtor.com®s newly released Monthly Housing Report.

Also, as more inventory and new listings arrived on the market in August, the rate of sellers making price adjustments has also begun to approach more normal levels, realtor.com® notes. The share of sellers who made listing price adjustments grew to 17.3% of active inventory, which is the highest share in 21 months and close to more typical levels that were seen between 2016 to 2019, researchers note.

Still, housing remains tight, even if with the additional inventory. U.S. housing inventory was down 25.8% year-over-year in August. That did mark an improvement over last month when inventories were down 33.5% annually.

Meanwhile, new listings were up 4.3% compared to a year ago.

“Low mortgage rates have motivated home buyers to endure this year’s challenging market and now some buyers are starting to see their persistence pay off,” says Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. “This month, new sellers added more affordable entry-level homes to the market compared to last year, while others began adjusting listing prices to better compete with an uptick in inventory.”

Housing remains a strong seller’s market as homes continue to sell quickly at record-high prices, Hale says. “But now a home priced well and in good condition may see two to three bids compared to 10 last year,” she notes. “For sellers not seeing as many offers, it may be worth revisiting pricing strategies as buyers continue searching for homes that fit their budgets.”

Americans want more social distance from their neighbors. A new Pew Research Center study finds a shift in home preferences since the pandemic with more consumers saying they want a larger home, even if it means local amenities are further away.

That marks a shift from 2019 when more Americans were desiring smaller houses that were “closer to each other, but schools, stores, and restaurants are within walking distance,” according to the Pew Research study.

Six in 10 U.S. adults surveyed say they would prefer to live in a community with larger homes that had a greater distance to retail stores and schools. That is up 7 percentage points since 2019. On the other hand, 39% of consumers surveyed say they prefer a community with smaller houses that are closer together and near amenities, down 8 points since 2019.