The share of adults planning a home purchase in the next 12 months dropped to 13% in the final quarter of 2022, down from 15% in the previous quarter. The drop is not surprising, given that housing affordability worsened during this period, as mortgage interest rates surpassed 7.0% and reached levels not seen in nearly 20 years.
In the third quarter of 2022, as buyers tried to stay ahead of further interest rate hikes, the share of prospective buyers contemplating a home purchase for the first time spiked to 66%. In the fourth quarter, as rates did in fact reach levels not seen since 2002, the share dropped again, to 61%.
The share of adults with plans to buy a home within a year changed unevenly across regions from the third to the final quarter of 2022, dropping in the Northeast (15% to 11%) and West (20% to 14%), staying flat in the South (at 14%), and edging up in the MW (9% to 10%).
Over half of all prospective buyers in every region are first-time buyers. From the third to the fourth quarters of 2022, however, the 1st-timer share dropped in three regions: the Northeast (70% to 64%), the South (66% to 60%), and the West (70% to 62%). Meanwhile, and for the second quarter in a row, the share edged up slightly in the Midwest, from 56% to 58%.
** Results come from the Housing Trends Report (HTR) – a research product created by the NAHB Economics team with the goal of measuring prospective home buyers’ perceptions about the availability and affordability of homes for-sale in their markets. The HTR is produced quarterly to track changes in buyers’ perceptions over time. All data are derived from national polls of representative samples of American adults conducted for NAHB by Morning Consult. Results are seasonally adjusted. A description of the poll’s methodology and sample characteristics can be found here. This is the first in a series of six posts highlighting results for the 4th quarter of 2022.
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