Wichita’s housing shortage will likely get worse in 2024, according to a new forecast from the Wichita State Center for Real Estate.
Home prices are expected to stay high, and fewer units will be sold next year than in 2023, said Stanley Longhofer, the center’s founding director who pens annual analyses of Kansas’ major real estate markets.
At least that’s his best guess, based on local and national economic indicators.
“Housing markets have been so crazy over the past few years, it can be hard to see through the distortions to understand what ‘normal’ really is,” said Longhofer, who will present his findings at the Kansas Association of Realtors Annual Conference in Manhattan on Thursday.
The center projects that home sales in Wichita metro area will end the year down by 10.4% with 9,470 units sold and that that figure will drop another 80 units in 2024. It attributes the lower number of sales in the first half of 2023 to a number of factors, noting that quality homes have routinely sold quickly with multiple offers.
“Some of this was due to higher mortgage rates putting a damper on demand. The bigger culprit, however, has been the lack of homes available for sale,” the report states.
It projects that home prices will continue rising at a “steady clip,” ending the year up 4.2% and ticking up another 3.4% in 2024.
The center’s analysis does not evaluate trends in rental property prices and availability. At a mayoral forum Monday, candidates debated how the city should go about addressing a roughly 20,000-unit shortage in rental property units.
The forecast does consider new-build construction of homes in and around the city, which has decreased so far this year. “Rising interest rates have had an even bigger impact on new home construction, impacting both buyers and new home builders, who are finding it more difficult to obtain financing to build spec homes,” the report states.
It projects that the number of permits pulled to build single-family homes will rise from 1,255 to 1,365 in 2024.
This story is shared through the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, a coalition of 11 newsrooms and community groups, including The Sunflower.
