How is the housing market going to shape out in 2023?

This is an issue on the minds of many Americans, as they're struggling in the market right now in late 2022, and things just seem to be getting worse.

Inflation keeps getting higher, to the point that people cannot afford simple milk and eggs at the grocery store, much less healthy vegetables and proteins.

Fuel is continuing to rise; gas has been going right back up since the midterms concluded, almost like that was the plan.

The bottom line is that people are struggling financially, and that usually means a lot of panic-selling and abandoning mortgages in the housing market.

Those factors, of course, could spell nightmarish news for the housing market in totality.

So, if things keep going the way they are, just how bad will things be for the housing market next year?

The truth is that things might not be as bad as you think.

Sure, there are a lot of people who are panic-selling and trying to downsize, but the irony here is that things are so bad in the housing market right now that they might not get worse.

How does this even make sense?

Well, if you have a bunch of people panic-selling, but no one is really buying all the homes up, then it doesn't become a trend.

Because mortgage companies aren't lending at high rates, and because housing prices are so high, many houses are sitting on the market a lot longer.

For people who really want to sell their homes because they're fearful, they're receiving the message that they might not be able to sell and get any money, which is causing many to change their minds.

Overall, this could have a stabilizing effect on the market in 2023.

More people staying in their existing homes, which means that more people are going to be dealing with fewer homes to choose from.

Yes, this drives prices up on homes, but it also keeps people in their homes longer out of fear that they won't be able to sell.

The overall positive benefit here is that the market doesn't operate so quickly and it ends up having time to self-correct and heal.

That is one very likely outcome of 2023's market, which has been pushed by a few supposed experts in the genre.

Though truthfully, no one knows for certain; there is no crystal ball.
 

No One Really Knows Until it Happens

In 2008, the top housing authorities in America claimed that subprime mortgages were stable and that everything was going swimmingly. There were quite a few economists ringing the alarm bell on a potential bubble burst, but the people whose expertise was supposedly related specifically to the housing market sang a sweet and melodic song about how well things were going. Of course, everyone knows how that ended. America's subprime mortgage crisis nearly threw half the planet into a severe depression, and then those housing authorities tried to gaslight Americans by saying that they were actually worried the entire time. If they were worried about anything, it was receiving paychecks from huge real estate firms and banks, not about the American people or the state of the market. The point here is that no one really knows how it's going to play out.

People might have their suspicions. Everyone has their predictions. Though at the end of the day, there are just too many factors to consider that may help or may hurt the overall market. For instance, while BlackRock is treated as a villain now for buying up and hoarding real estate, they could single handedly heal the entire housing market if they decided to start renting and selling at favorable rates more akin to 2021's prices. Will they do that? Probably not; they stand to gain too much money with inflation and home prices at all-time highs. Though, theoretically, one move like that, from one company, could completely reshape the entire housing landscape in America. Then start trying to calculate the other numerous factors, and you realize that no one truly knows how it's all going to go.

There are definitely factors that help people predict, but one of the biggest factors is consumer confidence. What that means, in a nutshell, is that if Americans keep their heads and don't start panic-selling and reneging on mortgages, etc, then the market has a habit of self-stabilization after a while. Don't buy into anyone's doomsday scenarios about the market. Just focus on the roof that's over your head.