Will your city favor buyers or sellers? Real estate report makes predictions for 2023

(NEXSTAR) – The days of 40-person bidding wars and offers that are six figures over asking may be over, according a recent analysis of the 2023 real estate market.

The national median home price rose 17.6% in 2021, then another 10% in 2022. Those soaring prices over the past several years made home sellers happy, but now steep mortgage rates are slowing things down.

“Median prices have declined on a monthly basis since mortgage rates doubled between January (2022) and October, and are likely to decline further in many markets across the country in 2023, reducing profitability for home sellers,” Rick Sharga, with real estate data tracker Attom, told the Associated Press.

Knock, a home loan company, created a Buyer-Seller Market Index to evaluate the state of the housing market in 100 U.S. metro areas. A year ago, all 100 markets analyzed by Knock favored sellers, the company said. At the start of 2023, 13 markets favored buyers, 43 were neutral and 44 favored sellers. Knock predicts more markets will continue to shift toward favoring buyers over the next 12 months.

One North Carolina city remains an exception, according to the report. Fayetteville, with its population of around 200,000, is the only market that didn't move toward benefiting buyers in 2022.

The top markets for buyers in 2023, according to Knock, will be:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
2. Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nevada
3. Salt Lake City, Utah
4. Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
5. Colorado Springs, Colorado
6. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, Georgia
7. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida
8. Tucson, Arizona
9. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
10. Killeen-Temple, Texas
11. Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, North Carolina-South Carolina
12. Jacksonville, Florida
13. Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas
14. Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan
15. Des Moines-West Des Moines, Iowa

Even for markets where things are growing more favorable for buyers, Knock had some words of caution: "Home shoppers will not see significant price declines in a majority of the 100 largest housing markets. Rather, prices will decline, mostly by small amounts, in just 16 large markets over the next 12 months."

The company's real estate forecast expects 20 of the 100 largest markets to still see median sales prices rise by at least 10%.

The top markets for sellers will be:

1. Fayetteville, North Carolina
2. Columbia, South Carolina
3. Springfield, Massachusetts
4. Rochester, New York
5. Hartford-East Hartford-Middletown, Connecticut
6. Harrisburg-Carlisle, Pennsylvania
7. New Haven-Milford, Connecticut
8. Syracuse, New York
9. Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pennsylvania-New Jersey
10. Albuquerque, New Mexico
11. Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
12. Winston-Salem, North Carolina
13. Salisbury, Maryland
14. Portland-South Portland, Maine
15. Providence-Warwick, Rhode Island-Massachusetts

The report includes a forecast for 100 real estate markets around the country. See the full analysis here.

To create its Buyer-Seller Market Index, Knock considered six data points in each market: the average sale-to-asking price ratio, the number of homes sold, number of active listings, the median days a home sits on market, the median sale price and the monthly home inventory.