Real estate: A looming end to the long boom

Source: The Week — 

The “booming housing market is stalling out,” said David Harrison and Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal. Trapped between near-record prices and soaring mortgage rates, buyers are pulling back. In July, figures released last week show, sales of existing homes slipped by 5.9 percent — a sixth straight month of decline. Sales of newly built homes fell even more, declining 12.6 percent for the month, and down nearly 30 percent from a year ago. “Homebuilding is also drying up, and mortgage applications are falling.” Housing has seen prices advance relentlessly, rising 46 percent nationally in just the past three years. Now home affordability is the lowest it has been since 1989, and the market has turned quickly.