For the record, housing supply was massively short prior to the record low rates. Golden handcuffs for 75% of homeowners are clearly a massive drag on supply, though. If rates drop under 6, and closer to 5, people will start selling again. Right now selling out of that low of a rate only makes sense if you have to move for work, divorce, or someone died.Good parallels to 2008, but sort of the reverse is happening interestingly. Currently, the people with real equity have no incentive, and a real disincentive, to sell which creates the lack of supply. Following 2008, the people that were broke and underwater were the ones who weren't selling because they couldn't. At least in the case of 2008, those people were forced out eventually which helped the market bottom out an eventually stabilize. In the current situation, what is the forcing mechanism to get us back on track to a normal market?
Wildcard in this is many people with the locked in low rates have a lot of equity and can HELOC in to a new home and keep the current place as a rental. Could also continue to keep supply low.
I don't see the market shifting much until a lot of people who bought in the last 5 years lose their jobs and can't pay the mortgage. Only issue there is those people also have a lot of equity and can pull a second mortgage or to float until they find work.
I also heard recently that Fannie or Freddie are about to make some rules changes to allow more people to pull second mortgages at lower rates. I can't remember the exact mechanics of it, but it basically sounded like another driver of inflation waiting to happen.
Local to WA, I think the state's inability to enact meaningful condo liability reform is a huge problem. People won't stop building apartments and shift to condos until those laws are fixed. That's a huge gap in the first time buyer market.