Fannie Mae says it expects U.S. home sales to end 2021 a bit higher than they were the year before and the multiple economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic to dampen the market well into next year.
"A lack of homes available for sale, relative to demand, remains the key constraint limiting sales growth and driving home price appreciation," the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) said this week in its Economic & Housing Outlook for September.
"Revisions to our home sales forecast were modest. We now expect 2021 total home sales to be 3.3% higher than in 2020, compared to a prior forecast of 3.1%," wrote the economists from Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group.
The ESR economists also adjusted their housing construction forecast to reflect their belief that some of the housing starts they had expected for later this year would be pushed into 2022.
Marc Rapport | USA Today