Homebuying gets easier in key battleground counties, but voters may not feel it

Maricopa County, Arizona

2020 margin: Biden +2.2

In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, home hunters are finally starting to see “the first little smidgen of any advantage that they’ve had since 2021,” said Tina Tamboer, a senior analyst with the Cromford Report, an Arizona real estate research firm. It’s the beginnings of a reprieve after the pandemic-era buying frenzy that swept the U.S. as low interest rates and surging demand for homes in less-dense areas sent many markets haywire.

As of August, the latest month with complete data, the area scored 61 out of 100 on NBC News’ Home Buyer Index, where higher scores reflect greater difficulty. That’s down 13 points from the year before, mostly driven by reduced competition. Local brokers say buyers are now wringing concessions from sellers in a much less intense race for properties.

Several years ago, open houses were packed and all-cash buyers were making offers well above asking prices. But ever since the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tackle inflation starting in March 2022, “the water was pretty much turned off,” Tamboer said. Sales have fallen to a small fraction of what they were at their peak, homes are sitting on the market for weeks or months, and sellers are sweetening their incentives, like offering to help cover closing costs.

Sheryl Bowden, who has sold real estate in the Phoenix area for 40 years, said she has rarely seen the market this quiet for this long. In some cases, buyers aren’t even coming to look at properties. After mortgage rates started to drop over the summer ahead of the Fed’s first rate cut in four years, she saw an uptick in buyer interest but hardly a tidal wave of demand.

One of her listings – a $400,000, four-bedroom, three-bath house – sat for weeks before the seller reduced its price to stay competitive.

“In any other market it would have been gone immediately. It is the perfect first-time homebuyer property,” said Bowden, who is president of the Phoenix Realtors board of directors.

Homes in Maricopa are spending an average of 53 days on the market, 15 days longer than a year ago and far longer than spring 2022’s 20-day average, according to Redfin. Just over 4,000 homes were sold in September – down 1.5% from a year earlier and a steep drop from three years ago, when around 8,000 homes were selling every month.

Bowden speculated that political uncertainty is contributing to slower sales. “You have one side or the other that thinks the election is going to be the end of the world if the other side wins,” she said.

Other factors are also at play: Sellers have mostly stuck to their prices, which have risen slightly over the past year but are 9% lower than the spring 2022 high. The area’s median sales price of $475,000 in September, according to Redfin, is 58% higher than at the start of 2020, when the median-priced home was going for around $300,000.

Bowden said one of her sellers is a retiree who worries that cutting their price would eat into the proceeds needed to buy their next home.

“They can reduce their price, but there is no guarantee they can get an offer because there are no buyers looking,” she said. “They are in a catch-22.”

So for now, the Phoenix market remains unaffordable for many. A household would need to earn at least $96,000 annually to afford the typical Maricopa County home, assuming it could make a 20% down payment on a 30-year mortgage, with rates now at around 6%. That’s above the median income for the county of around $87,000 a year.

Bowden has also struggled to move rental properties, like a townhouse listed for $1,699 a month that just one prospective renter has looked at in over a month. Bowden counted 66 similar rentals in a 2-mile radius that she’s competing with. 

Maricopa County rents averaged just under $1,500 in September, slightly lower than three years ago after having surged as much as 25%. But they’re still higher than the $1,200 monthly average four years ago. Meanwhile, evictions in Phoenix jumped in 2022 and have remained above their pre-pandemic levels. There were nearly 8,000 eviction filings in August, 33% above their average level, according to the Eviction Lab database.

The number of people experiencing homelessness has also stayed elevated. An annual county survey found 9,435 residents living in shelters, on the streets or in temporary, unstable housing as of January, down slightly since 2023 but 27% above 2020.

Cobb and Dekalb Counties, Georgia

2020 margin: Biden +14.3 (Cobb), Biden +67.4 (Dekalb)

In two key counties in metro Atlanta – which in 2020 helped Democrats secure the White House and later helped them win the Senate after decades when most Georgians voted Republican – homebuying difficulty is also retreating. Cobb and DeKalb, which hug either side of the city’s center, scored 60 and 55 on NBC’s index, respectively, compared with 70 and 64 a year ago.

“Inventory is up significantly,” said Bob Clarkson, a real estate agent with Century 21 who focuses on metro Atlanta. 

That’s mostly due to a combination of new construction and more people listing their homes. While year-to-date supply is still far below pre-pandemic levels, according to Realtor.com, the area has a greater share of available properties than the national average. DeKalb had 3,681 on the market at the end of September, compared with 2,507 the same time last year, and in Cobb the figures were 3,103 this year, compared with 2,338 last year.

But Clarkson said that in the booming region – whose population is forecast to reach nearly 7 million in the next five years – “there’s not as much competition anymore” for homeowners looking to sell, with the average time on the market now 35 to 45 days. Competition plunged 31 points in Cobb and 30 in DeKalb, according to NBC News’ measure, over the last 12 months.

Prices in the area have also fallen more steeply than in most of the U.S., but the discounting remains modest. Clarkson said interest rates will need to fall further to “really help balance out the market” overall. “That’s probably the biggest factor, especially for first-time homebuyers,” he said.

Officials are trying to ease cost pressures in the meantime. The state this year expanded its Georgia Dream loan program for a broader swath of potential buyers, including down payment assistance for “public protectors” like active service members, teachers and nurses. Over the summer, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta allocated $20 million for down payment and closing cost assistance in workforce housing for residents who make 80% to 120% of the area’s median income.

“A lot of times, first-time homebuyers aren’t able to cover the costs” and lose out to investors and corporate landlords, said Makeba Evans, who covers the metro area for EXP Realty. “So if it’s a house that they want, they’re willing to pay what the seller wants.”

Brown County, Wisconsin

2020 margin: Trump +7.2

If the Phoenix and Atlanta markets are getting more affordable but remain sluggish, it’s the opposite situation in Green Bay: Homebuying is getting harder in Brown County, but the area’s hot market is still within reach of many middle-class households – at least for now.

Homebuying difficulty in Brown County hit 84 in NBC News’ index in August, up 12 points from the year before, thanks mostly to a 28-point surge in the area’s competition index. The demand is being driven by retirees looking to downsize and first-time buyers with young families, said Mike Kunesh, who has been selling real estate in the area since the 1990s.

“You almost can’t touch a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch home for under $400,000 anymore,” he said. Those types of properties in the area that are listed for $325,000 to $400,000 have been selling for tens of thousands of dollars over asking prices.

The median home in Brown County now sells for $334,000, up 7.5% from a year earlier, according to Redfin. So far, that’s still within budget for many households: Assuming a 20% down payment on a 30-year mortgage, it would take an income of $66,000 to afford the typical home – below the area’s $77,000 median.

But more buyers could soon find themselves priced out if trends continue. Already, Kunesh said, rising prices are keeping some on the sidelines even as interest rates retreat. Sales fell 13% in September after having increased the month before, according to Redfin.

Rents have also jumped 8% over the past year and are up 22% since 2020 to $918 a month, according to the rental marketplace Zumper. That has left lower-wage workers struggling, especially those working in tourism, customer service and meat processing roles in the area, said Alexia Rehn, CEO of the Gateway Collective, which works to build more affordable housing in Green Bay. About 10% of households in the county live below the poverty line.

“Our cost of living is going to be a lot lower than some of those urban areas, but our salaries are a lot lower, too,” said Rehn, whose organization recently converted a former call center into a 72-unit apartment complex with rents capped at 30% of a household’s income.

Housing costs have also contributed to homelessness in Brown County, where a nonprofit group’s survey found 616 people sleeping in shelters or temporary housing or on the street at the start of 2024, up from 444 in 2020.

“The need for the local shelter systems has gone through the roof,” Rehn said. “Those numbers are unprecedented here.”