A big backyard may be tougher to find nowadays. Single-family homes are getting larger whereas the lots are getting smaller. The median home size is now about 2,260 square feet—up from 2,170 square feet in 2010. The median lot size, however, on a new home has decreased nearly 18% (10,500 square feet in 2010 to 8,700 square feet in 2020), according to a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by StorageCafe.

“The demand for housing in many markets is so much higher than the current supply that developers of new residential properties have to make the most of available land,” says Isaac Hiatt of Yardi Matrix, a real estate research firm. “This has led to an increase in what many would call single-family condensed housing.”

Homes built in the 1960s or 1970s were often on more expansive plots of land. But many of those homes are being replaced by larger single-family homes or, when zoning allows, by multiple townhouses, the study says.

However, during the pandemic, more homeowners are putting greater focus on their outdoor spaces. A big backyard has been in demand. Where are home buyers most likely to find a larger yard space?

StorageCafe analyzed lot sizes in the largest U.S. cities. The best city for a large yard: Indianapolis, according to the analysis. Lot sizes in Indianapolis are nearly 10 times those in Philadelphia.

In general, Southern cities tended to have larger lot sizes compared to West and East coast cities.

If you’re single and ready to mingle, should you also move?

Many singles say they moved to a new city or state for a fresh start after ending a romantic relationship, with four out of five relocating, according to a new survey conducted by Cinch Home Services. Singles were more than two times as likely to make such a post-breakup move during the pandemic than before it, the survey found. “With remote work becoming more common, moving doesn’t necessarily entail a job loss as often as it would have beforehand,” the study notes. “COVID-19 also caused major price fluctuations in living expenses, perhaps making a post-breakup move even more appealing.”

The top criteria for choosing a new city to move to among singles, according to the survey:

• Job opportunities (49.2%)
• Cost of living (37.8%)
• Proximity to family (33.5%)
• Social scene (24.3%)
• Landscape features (24.3%)

Where are singles most likely to move? Cinch Home Services ranked cities based on the percentage of the population that is single, average post-tax monthly wages, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment, and the number of leisure locations within the city. Cinch Home Services identified the following top cities for singles in 2021.

© Cinch Home Services

Just how wild is the real estate market right now? You don’t hear National Association of REALTORS® Chief Economist Lawrence Yun say this every day: “We’ve never seen price appreciation of this magnitude.” It’s a sobering message in NAR’s latest home sales video, which covers the month of May, when the median home price rose nearly 24% year over year from $283,500 in May 2020 to $350,300 in May 2021.

Higher prices have sidelined some house hunters who are waiting for more housing inventory. But buyer competition is starting to cool, which could help consumers’ prospects.

Inventory is particularly scant in price points below $300,000, Yun says. And homes that are available in those price points are quickly being bid up. For example, Indianapolis house hunter Kelly Robinson recently told CNN that she budgeted for a $250,000 home, but properties in her target area were selling within days and sometimes fetched $100,000 above the asking price. “There are so many aggressive shoppers out there, and I’m not willing to compete with that,” Robinson told CNN.

Buyers Fatigued

Some buyers are dropping out of the market—at least for now. Mortgage applications, a gauge of future homebuying activity, have decreased over recent weeks even as mortgage rates remain low. Home sales have dropped in recent months, too, mostly due to record-low inventory.

But housing analysts also point to buyers who are getting sticker shock from high home prices. “Clearly, sales are moving down partly due to the inventory shortage, but affordability is squeezing some buyers out of the market,” Yun told CNN. “Home buyers qualify for a mortgage based on their income, but with prices rising 20% or higher, it is simply pricing them out of the market.”

Ultra-low mortgage rates under 3% are helping to offset some of the price hikes, and many buyers don’t want to give up their shot at locking in some of the lowest borrowing costs on record.

Relief in Sight?

Though bidding wars reportedly are decreasing, “it’s still a seller’s market, no doubt,” Yun says. But sellers should price their homes cautiously to remain competitive as sales decline and more inventory is added to the market over the coming months. New listings in June increased 5.5% year over year and were up 10.9% over the prior month, offering a sign that more listings are coming, according to realtor.com®.

Yun predicts a “calmer” market emerging for the remainder of the year. The market likely will remain tipped in sellers’ favor, he says, but buyers likely will feel less pressure to rush their purchase decisions. That could be a welcome trend that encourages buyers who’ve paused their home search to resume.

A shortage of homes for sale has forced more prospective buyers to rent. That is driving up prices in the rental market.

The U.S. median rental price in June jumped 8.1% compared to a year ago, reaching $1,575, realtor.com® reports. Also, two-bedroom units saw the largest increase in rents at 10.2%, as the demand for more space continued to remain high.

Rental prices in 44 of the largest 55 metros broke records last month. The largest gains were recorded in Riverside, Calif.; Tampa; and Phoenix, which all posted increases above 20% year-over-year, realtor.com® reports.

“The surge we’re seeing in rental prices is likely to exacerbate the K-shaped, or uneven, nature of the pandemic recovery in the U.S.,” says Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. “Rents are rising at a faster pace than income, which is adding to the challenges faced by lower-income Americans as they struggle to recover from job losses and other hardships brought about by COVID.”

Rental prices aren’t likely to ease unless there is a shift with a higher number of homes for sale and rent, Hale adds.

Bidding wars are still more common than a year ago, but economists are starting to notice the competition lessen somewhat. As more housing inventory gradually enters the market, buyers may face some relief from the intense bidding wars that have sent home prices surging in recent months.

In June, 65% of home offers written by Redfin real estate agents faced competition, which is down from 72.1% in May and 74.1% in April, Redfin reports. But multiple offer situations are still higher than a year ago when the bidding rate stood at 56.8%.

On average, a home sold in May had five offers, according to the REALTORS® Confidence Index Report, a survey of thousands of real estate pros’ transactions.

But housing experts say buyer fatigue may be setting in. After losing out on a bidding war or getting priced out, some home buyers may be waiting for the market to ease before jumping back in.

“The first half of this year was red hot—it was almost impossible to get an offer accepted,” says Laura Sechrist Molenda, a real estate professional with Redfin in Southern California. “Two of my buyers just had their offers accepted because the sellers’ first buyers backed out. The market is still competitive, but buyers are more trepidatious than they were at the start of 2021 and less willing to pull out every stop in order to win.”

The housing market traditionally starts to ease as it heads later into the summer and into the fall. But real estate has hardly followed any historical normalcy over the past year since the pandemic.

The markets with the highest bidding war rates in June—of the 52 markets tracked—were:

• Sarasota, Fla.: 87% of offers faced a bidding war
• Charleston, S.C.: 82.9%
• Reno, Nev.: 80%
• Charlotte, N.C.: 78.9%
• Kansas City, Mo.: 78.6%
• Spokane, Wash.: 78%
• Sacramento, Calif.: 77.4%
• Grand Rapids, Mich.: 76.9%
• Raleigh, N.C.: 75.7%
• Greenville, S.C.: 73.9%