2024 Housing Market Price Predictions By Industry Experts

Now that I’ve published the 2024 S&P 500 predictions, let’s look at the 2024 housing market predictions by various industry experts. The forecast for 2024 home prices ranges from -1.7% to +4.1%.

Real estate is my favorite asset class to build wealth because it generates income, provides utility, is less volatile, is more easily understandable, can be improved upon, is more controllable, and is less efficient than stocks. Earning rental income was the main reason why I could retire early in 2012.

Given my preference for real estate over stocks, I’ve allocated about 50% of my net worth to real estate. I also see real estate as a bond plus type of investment, with more potential upside and less potential downside.

For most regular people, real estate will also be the best way to build wealth over time. Forced savings every month tends to build wealth for even the most undisciplined spender.

Before we go through the 2024 home price forecasts, let’s review the 2023 home price forecasts to see how industry experts fared. I’ll also review my own 2023 home price forecast.

Reviewing The 2023 Home Price Forecasts

According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve data, the median home price in America was $479,500 in 4Q2022. Based on the latest data as of 3Q2023, the median home price in America is $431,000, for a decline of 10.1%. We need to wait several months to see what the 4Q2023 median home price figure is.

I’ve been using the St. Louis Federal Reserve data as the consistent median home price benchmark. However, if you ask other housing data aggregators, you’ll get some different numbers. Some have median home prices up for 2023. But as I like to stay consistent, I’ll stick with the St. Louis Fed data.

You can clearly see the dip in the median home price in 2023 in the chart below.

With a 10.1% decline as of 3Q2023, let’s now look at the 2023 housing price forecasts made at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023. Many of these forecasts changed throughout the year. However, it’s still good to know what was expected by the start of 2023.

The Least And Most Accurate 2023 Home Price Predictions

As you can see from the chart, Zonda and Financial Samurai made the most accurate 2023 housing price forecasts. As a result, I will start a real estate consulting business and charge big bucks like John Burns Real Estate Consulting (JBREC), which was off by 10% – 12%. Nah, too much work.

More than half the battle in forecasting is getting the direction right. If you don’t get the direction right, you’re already dead in the water. So even though JBREC was overly bearish, at least it was directionally correct.

Why Did Some Housing Experts Get Their Price Forecasts So Wrong?

In retrospect, it seems obvious the median home price would go down after the Fed began hiking rates aggressively in 1Q 2022. Home prices had also shot up way beyond average in 2020 and 2021. As a result, I came out with a relatively…