The U.S. housing market is cooling down — sort of

Home prices made a big jump in 2020fueling the climb throughout the summer months.

and continued to increase this year, with bidding wars

However, there are some signs that the market is cooling to a degree. As Bloomberg notes in the article below, U.S. home-price appreciation slowed for a second straight month in September. Sellers are still mostly in a good position, but the pendulum is swinging toward buyers. For instance, roughly 80 percent of listings in the Boise, Idaho, metro area had price cuts in September as the market begins to settle down following the pricing surge.

This doesn’t mean real estate markets aren’t still “hot” — particularly in these 10 areas — but they might not be as scorching hot as they were a few months ago. Some real estate experts refer to this process as “normalizing,” and there are several factors in play, including buyers simply getting priced out and the typical cooldown we see in the fall and winter.

This ebb and flow is pretty common in real estate, and it’s a good reminder for corporate home sale programs to make sure they’re sticking to tried-and-true basics — things like using two relocation-trained agents to complete a broker market analysis and requiring inspections, even if a seller is willing to waive them to speed up a deal. Doing so will help ensure you have an IRS-compliant program, no matter what happens with the market.