These Pa. cities will favor home sellers in 2023

(NEXSTAR) – The days of 40-man bidding wars and bids six figures above demands could be over, according to a current analysis of the real estate market in 2023.

The national median home price rose 17.6% in 2021 and another 10% in 2022. Those soaring prices over the past few years have kept home sellers happy, but now high mortgage rates are holding things back.

“Average prices have been falling monthly since mortgage rates doubled between January (2022) and October, and are likely to fall further in many markets across the country in 2023, reducing profitability for home sellers,” Rick Sharga said with Property Data Tracker Attom told the Associated Press.

Knock, a home loan company, created a buyer-seller market index to assess the state of the housing market in 100 US metropolitan areas. A year ago, all 100 markets analyzed by Knock were preferred sellers, the company said. At the beginning of 2023, 13 markets preferred buyers, 43 neutral and 44 preferred sellers. Knock forecasts more markets to shift toward buyer preference over the next 12 months.

According to the report, one North Carolina city remains an exception. Fayetteville, with a population of around 200,000, is the only market that hasn’t moved towards buyers in 2022.

According to Knock, the top markets for buyers in 2023 are:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
2. Las Vegas Henderson Paradise, Nevada
3. Salt Lake City, Utah
4. Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
5. Colorado Springs, Colorado
6. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, Georgia
7. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida
8. Tucson, Ariz
9. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
10. Killeen Temple, Texas
11. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina
12. Jacksonville, Fla
13. Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas
14. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan
15. Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa

Even for markets where things are getting cheaper for buyers, Knock warned: “Homebuyers will not see significant price declines in most of the top 100 housing markets. Rather, over the next 12 months, prices will fall mostly modestly in just 16 major markets.”

The company’s real estate forecast assumes that 20 of the top 100 markets will continue to experience median sales price increases of at least 10%.

The top markets for sellers are:

1. Fayetteville, North Carolina
2. Columbia, South Carolina
3. Springfield, Massachusetts
4. Rochester, New York
5. Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown, Connecticut
6. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pennsylvania
7. New Haven-Milford, Connecticut
8. Syracuse, New York
9. Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pennsylvania-New Jersey
10. Albuquerque, New Mexico
11. Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
12. Winston-Salem, North Carolina
13. Salisbury, Maryland
14. Portland-South Portland, Maine
15. Providence-Warwick, Rhode Island-Massachusetts

The report includes a forecast for 100 real estate markets across the country. See the full analysis here.

To create his buyer-seller market index, Knock considered six data points in each market: the average sale-to-offer ratio, the number of homes sold, the number of active listings, and the average days a home is on the market , the median selling price and the monthly home inventory.