Bidding War Winners Are Getting Cold Feet:  Some home buyers are reportedly backing out of purchase contracts due to second-guessing the contract price, after winning a bidding war. The trend is most common in the Northeast and Mountain regions of the country.  After losing out in several multiple offer situations, a buyer may head into a new bidding war with an “I’ll offer anything” attitude. After the jubilance of winning wears off, the reality of overpaying sets in.  Many develop cold feet and back out of the contract, thus putting the now stigmatized house back on the market.

Sales of $1M-Plus Homes Soar:  Unlike past housing booms, the real estate market is seeing a surge in sales at the very top of the housing market. More expensive properties are selling nearly twice as fast as lower and mid-priced homes.  “Wealthier Americans have benefited greatly during the pandemic thanks to the rising stock market, which typically helps grow net wealth,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS®, told The Washington Post. “So there’s greater demand for luxury housing now and that sector isn’t as hamstrung by inventory shortages as the rest of the market.”

MLS Finds That Listed Homes Sell for 17% More:  In a two-year analysis, homes on a mid-Atlantic MLS sold for more money than similar homes that sold off of it. Bright MLS, a multiple listing service from Pennsylvania to Virginia, conducted the study of 442,829 records for home sales transactions completed between January 2019 and December 2020.  The median sold on the MLS was about 17% higher than homes sold off of the MLS, through for sale by owner.  The study found that the fastest sales for the most money use the MLS to market the homes for sale.

30-Year Mortgage Rate Dips to 2.77%:  New fears over the fast-spreading COVID-19 delta variant are moving mortgage rates lower. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage spent another week under 3%.

Delta Variant Could Cause Housing Volatility:  The fast-spreading delta variant of the coronavirus is prompting more pandemic precautions to return. It’s also affecting the hot housing market and likely will continue to be housing’s wild card over the next few months, economists say. The fears of a more contagious version of the coronavirus could prompt some homeowners to delay selling their home, which would press on inventory levels just as they were starting to see some improvement. If buyer demand stays high and inventories fall again, that could then press on home prices even more and ignite more bidding wars for limited housing stock.