Atlanta’s once red-hot housing market is suffering a cooldown, as the Georgia city reported the biggest share of home sale cancellations in April of all U.S. metro analyzed by Redfin and sales fell year-over-year for the third consecutive month.
The city’s housing market is “at risk” of experiencing a significant downturn, with price drops so steep that it could feel “very much like a crash,” Norada Real Estate Investment’s analyst Marco Santarelli said.
Why It Matters
Many of the hottest housing markets during the pandemic are now experiencing corrections, with lower demand putting downward pressure on prices. The most glaring examples of this unfolding phenomenon are concentrated in the South, where most remote workers relocated during the health emergency.
In these markets, affordability reached a breaking point during the pandemic after which many locals were priced out of buying homes. The only ones who could afford buying properties were investors and out-of-state buyers—but high prices, elevated mortgage rates and growing economic uncertainty have now discouraged these categories as well, and sales are dropping…