{"id":7101,"date":"2018-12-27T08:36:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-27T16:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/?p=7101"},"modified":"2026-03-25T09:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:13:05","slug":"real-estate-news-recap-dec-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/real-estate-news-recap-dec-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Holidays and the Housing Market: December 2018&#8217;s Real Estate News Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With a blink of an eye, December has come to a close. We\u2019re counting down the 12 days of Christmas into the New Year, but not without another HomeLight\u2019s Real Estate Recap!<\/p>\n<p>Every month, HomeLight scours the internet for the latest real estate stories to create an informative monthly digest so that you\u2019re up to date with the goings-on in housing.<\/p>\n<p>From the stock market to climate change, 2018 has been a year of ups and <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/%5EDJI\/\">Dow<\/a>s. Despite the holiday cheer and Michael Buble\u2019s Christmas album, December wasn\u2019t that jolly of a month in terms of housing news for sellers and buyers.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take a look at what happened this month:<\/p>\n<h2><b>1. Fed Up<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><strong>+<\/strong> On December 18, The Federal Fund raised interest rates by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/pressreleases\/monetary20181219a.htm\">quarter-point to 2.25-2.5 percent.<\/a> What does this mean for you as homebuyer or seller? Well, higher interest rates mean higher mortgage rates\u2014fewer people are able to afford the hike in interest when buying a home.<\/p>\n<p><b>+ CNBC<\/b>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/12\/18\/heres-how-the-fed-rate-hike-will-impact-you.html\"> Here\u2019s how that Fed rate hike will impact you<\/a>: \u201cThe economy, the Fed and inflation all have some influence over long-term fixed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2016\/12\/13\/how-rising-rates-may-not-matter-for-housing.html\">mortgage rates<\/a>, which generally are pegged to yields on U.S. Treasury notes, so there\u2019s already been a spike since the Fed started raising rates.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7112\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7112\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"775\" height=\"775\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-775x775.png\" class=\"attachment-content size-content\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-775x775.png 775w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-64x64.png 64w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-128x128.png 128w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-192x192.png 192w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-432x432.png 432w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-500x500.png 500w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979-800x800.png 800w, https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/5b63fdbe2352bd0a7333dd20404c9979.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7112\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: David Foster\/Yahoo Finance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>+\u00a0<\/strong>The average 30-year fixed rate is now about 4.83 percent, up from 4.09 percent in 2015. That has cost the average homebuyer roughly $42,000, WalletHub found.<\/p>\n<p><strong>+\u00a0<\/strong>Between increasing home prices and higher mortgage rates, homes are about 10 percent less affordable this year than they were last year, according to Tendayi Kapfidze, the Chief Economist at LendingTree. \u2018Next year, we could see another 10 percent to 15 percent decrease in affordability,\u2019 he said.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>+\u00a0<\/strong>If you\u2019re thinking about selling a house, get your listing up sooner rather than later. With mortgage rates still at a historical low, buyers won\u2019t be entirely affected just yet and still have full wallets as we enter the new year. Homebuyers will want to lock down on a rate before its late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s what happened in real estate news for December, 2018. HomeLight&#8217;s monthly digest of the most relevant real estate news for homeowners!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":7104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[320,334],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-add-value","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>10 Real Estate News Stories Homeowners Should Read in Dec. 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here&#039;s what happened in real estate news for December, 2018. HomeLight&#039;s monthly digest of the most relevant real estate news for homeowners!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/real-estate-news-recap-dec-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Holidays and the Housing Market: December 2018&#039;s Real Estate News Recap\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#039;s what happened in real estate news for December, 2018. HomeLight&#039;s monthly digest of the most relevant real estate news for homeowners!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/real-estate-news-recap-dec-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"HomeLight Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gohomelight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-12-27T16:36:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-25T16:13:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Copy-of-HomeLight-Youtube-Thumbnail-Template-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catrina Sun-Tan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gohomelight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gohomelight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Catrina Sun-Tan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"14 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"10 Real Estate News Stories Homeowners Should Read in Dec. 2018","description":"Here's what happened in real estate news for December, 2018. 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Don't be surprised if you catch her browsing luxury homes on Instagram or obsessing over the latest market trends.","url":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/author\/catrinasuntan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}