1. Interest rates: They are at historical lows, but rising. Why? The economy is improving and may continue to improve significantly throughout 2021. Higher interest rates may cool some of the irrationally exuberant bidding that may cause appraisal problems.

2. Supply-demand: US housing stock is UNDER-supplied. We have been under-building for over a decade.

3. COVID: 46.1 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including about 21.6 million people who have been fully vaccinated - 240 million should be in distribution within a month! A one-shot vaccine is a game-changer. Eliminating hospitalization (and death) changes everything. The POST-COVID era is approaching.

4. New Buyer Competition: New, large corporate all-cash single-family home buyers are new buyer competitors in the market further fueling the supply-demand imbalance. As COVID wanes neglected/abandoned markets will re-awaken.

5. Stimulus Steroids: Trillions of federal dollars will be flowing into the economy - along with corporate and privately saved dollars - lowering unemployment, causing rising demand and a potential frenzy of spending that may cause inflation that could cause pressure to raise interest rates.

Here's what's been happening locally:

Throughout our area, generally low inventory levels of listings on the market have played a large role in the heat of the market. Listing activity has simply not kept pace with buyer demand.

Month by month, year-over-year comparison of home sales volumes - illustrating the initial pandemic crash in activity followed by the market rebound that saw monthly sales volumes climb far above the levels of the previous year. January 2021 saw approximately 48% higher sales than January 2020.