By Amy Luesebrink
December’s news about the Federal Reserve raising the interest rate by .025 percent may signal the beginning of a new trend in climbing interest rates and may have folks thinking about buying or selling again in 2016. According to two-thirds of 170 economists polled by Reuters after the announcement, they expect the Federal Reserve will raise the rate again in the next three months or just about in time for the opening of the spring housing market push.
There’s a slowly growing sense of the economic rebound: homes starting to be built on the Humboldt Greenway; the newly built industrial building at the corner of 49th and Brooklyn Boulevard Ave. N; and the proposed development of the multimillion dollar library and grocery store complexes at 44th and Humboldt–all becoming bricks and mortar assets in the Camden area soon. It’s been a long wait!
In the last nine-month period of 2015 (as of this deadline) 397 homes were sold in the seven Camden neighborhoods (Cleveland, Folwell, Lind Bohanon, McKinley, Shingle Creek, Victory, Webber-Camden). Homes selling on the low end were one 3bedroom/1bath for $22,000 in the Folwell neighborhood; 1 bedroom/1bath homes in the Lind Bohanon and Shingle Creek neighborhoods at $27,000 and $32,000 respectively. Homes that sold on the high end were a 3bedroom/1bath home with 3,340 sq. ft. in the Victory neighborhood for $390,000, with the next two a 1b/1b townhome for $275,000 in Folwell and one 3bedroom/2bath in Cleveland that went for $250,000.
While no one can predict the true effect of this new interest rate rise or predict the upcoming housing market, there are some trends that are being looked at as possibly having the greatest impact on the housing market in 2016. Realtor.com is predicting that “We’ll return to normal” with a healthy growth in home sales and prices in 2016 but a bit slower pace than in 2015. Secondly, they say we’ll be feeling the “generational shuffle” making 2016 the best year to sell in the near future. Thirdly, they believe that builders will focus on “more affordable price points” when building new but more modest homes. Fourth, higher mortgage rates will “affect high-cost markets the most” increasing the value of the affordable market. And their last trend that they see for 2016 is that already unaffordable rents will go up more than home prices giving new home buyers more incentives to buy and those looking to sell more buyers in the 2016 buying pool.