The housing market in Louisiana has been a roller coaster for a while now. Soaring insurance premiums, high interest rates and lack of inventory have driven up costs and left some would-be buyers and sellers on the sidelines.
Now, though, there may be glimmers of hope with real estate agents reporting increased activity. In the first six months of the year, sales were up nearly 7% in the greater New Orleans area, almost 4% in greater Baton Rouge and 5% in Lafayette, reporters from this newspaper found. Median sales prices also rose.
That’s due to many factors. Our insurance market, long a sore spot for homeowners, is stabilizing, so more insurers are willing to write policies again in areas of our state that they previously shunned. It also may be that buyers are getting used to interest rates hovering around 6.5%…