OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – Historically low interest rates in 2020 and 2021 led to a home-buying frenzy.
“Everyting sold and it just didn’t really matter what condition it was in,” says broker and realtor Tom Simmons with the Better Homes and Gardens The Good Life Group.
Local experts like Simmons say as interest rates increase, we’re moving away from that trend.
“Now, we’re finding buyer are more discerning as a rule, and they’re looking for specifics, and because of the interest rate environment, they’re taking their time cause were not seeing six, seven, eight, 10, 12 offers like we’d seen in the previous two years for sure.”
“We’re starting to see the average days on the market tick up slightly,” says Blake Uhing, an Adjunct Professor of Real Estate Finance at Creighton University. “It’s still at a level that is quite low historically, but given that the supply has been so constrained over the last several years, the market is starting to show some signs of weaking for the first time in the last couple years.”
Right now, interest rates sit around six to seven percent, which Uhing and Simmons both say is still low compared to the 40-year average.
But it’s double what the rates were in the height of the pandemic.
“Those changes to the market have created a little bit more inventory, but we’re still short inventory, and we still have buyers that are on the sidelines,” Simmons says about the Omaha area.
Simmons also says as a result of that low inventory, prices aren’t dipping as much as home buyers would like.
“Until we have literally, probably another 1,000 houses in the Omaha market or more, we don’t see an environment where those prices are going to go down because people need to buy houses.”
Uhing says it’s hard to predict what the