美国国家公共电台 NPR New Homebuyers Face A Friendlier Housing Market, Thanks To Cooldown

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The housing market is cooling. Sales of both new and existing homes are dropping. What does that mean for homebuyers and the overall economy?

NPR's Camila Domonoske explains.

CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE¹: This summer, Sara Murawski's real estate agent asked her how long she'd been looking at houses.

SARA MURAWSKI: I was like, you know, I've wanted a house since I was 12, but I actually started looking to buy around 21 (laughter).

DOMONOSKE: Murawski's 34, and she's serious. She dreamed of home ownership since middle school. She finally bought a home in Portland, Ore., this year. And in her long-delayed childhood dream, you can track the last decade of the housing market, not just in Portland but across the U.S. Murawski always knew exactly what kind of house she wanted, a Craftsman² - that style with columns and exposed rafters on a big front porch. But right after she graduated from college, the Great Recession hit.

MURAWSKI: I worked in construction, so my wages weren't that great.

DOMONOSKE: She wanted to buy a house, but it wasn't happening.

MURAWSKI: I just felt really lucky to have a job throughout that entire time.

DOMONOSKE: There were a lot of people in her position. After the crash, they couldn't afford to take advantage of low home prices. Then as the economy improved, they all entered the market at once. There weren't enough houses to go around. The fierce competition kept Murawski from buying.

MURAWSKI: The market has just been climbing the whole time. It was really hard to decide if it was a bubble and I should wait or what I should do.

DOMONOSKE: The market was booming in cities across the country, but it was particularly intense in Portland. Rhonda Spencer is a real estate broker³ in Portland.

RHONDA SPENCER: Buyers were having to bid over the price of the home many times.

DOMONOSKE: But this summer, things shifted, she says.

SPENCER: We're not seeing as many competitive bids.

DOMONOSKE: The market was cooling in Portland and other pricey markets from LA to New York City. Prices are still steep, but the bidding wars are easing. And this summer was also when Murawski decided⁴ she was ready. She got a real estate agent, found a condo. It wasn't the Craftsman of her dreams, but she fell in love. After years and years of waiting, it all happened very fast.

MURAWSKI: It was maybe two weeks.

DOMONOSKE: From deciding to buy to having her offer accepted, there were no bidding wars to block her way. So why did the market change? Well, interest rates are the biggest driver. After a long, slow recovery, the Fed is raising rates, and mortgage rates are approaching 5 percent for the first time in years. That's a full percentage point higher than a year ago. Len Kiefer is a deputy chief economist⁵ at Freddie Mac.

LEN KIEFER: At a typical sort of mortgage size, that means about $150 a month in higher payments.

DOMONOSKE: But Kiefer wants to keep that in perspective.

KIEFER: Mortgage rates above 5 percent may seem very high. You know, over the last seven years, they have rarely been that high, but, historically, that is some of the lowest rates ever seen.

DOMONOSKE: There's another factor, he says. Prices were rising way faster than incomes, which isn't sustainable, he says. So you'd expect the market to adjust. Kiefer uses words like rebalancing, but not everyone is quite so sanguine⁶.

PATRICK NEWPORT: So the housing market's in a slump⁷. It's deteriorating⁸, going to a temporary period of weakness.

DOMONOSKE: Patrick Newport is a U.S. economist at IHS Markit, a business information group. But Newport also emphasizes that the national housing market is not collapsing⁹ and the economy overall is very strong.

NEWPORT: The economy's doing so well right now that the rest of the economy can disguise what's happening in the housing market.

DOMONOSKE: And this isn't a crash. In fact, slowing sales might let prices stabilize¹⁰ and eventually draw people who have been sidelined into the market - people like Sarah Murawski, who's settling into her new reality.

MURAWSKI: This last weekend, the washer was off-kilter (laughter). Yeah, I just threw my fist in the air. And I was like homeownership, yay.

DOMONOSKE: Don't worry. She fixed¹¹ the washer.

Camila Domonoske, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 craftsman   

n.技工，精于一门工艺的匠人

参考例句：

• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。
• The craftsman is working up the mass of clay into a toy figure.艺人把一团泥捏成玩具形状。

3 broker   

n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排

参考例句：

• He baited the broker by promises of higher commissions.他答应给更高的佣金来引诱那位经纪人。
• I'm a real estate broker.我是不动产经纪人。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

6 sanguine   

adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的

参考例句：

• He has a sanguine attitude to life.他对于人生有乐观的看法。
• He is not very sanguine about our chances of success.他对我们成功的机会不太乐观。

7 slump   

n.暴跌，意气消沉，（土地）下沉；vi.猛然掉落，坍塌，大幅度下跌

参考例句：

• She is in a slump in her career.她处在事业的低谷。
• Economists are forecasting a slump.经济学家们预言将发生经济衰退。

8 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

9 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

10 stabilize   

vt.（使）稳定，使稳固，使稳定平衡；vi.稳定

参考例句：

• They are eager to stabilize currencies.他们急于稳定货币。
• His blood pressure tended to stabilize.他的血压趋向稳定。

11 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。