The Housing Market May Be Starting To Cool, But Buyers Shouldn’t Expect A Drop In Price

After months of sky-rocketing home prices that have left many buyers unable to purchase the houses they planned to, the market is finally starting to show signs of a slowdown, though buyers shouldn’t expect that to translate to a drop in prices just yet.

Following the Federal Reserve raising interest rates in March, which has seen them surge to 5 percent, demand has started to cool, as higher rates and declining affordability continue to force some buyers to bow out of the market entirely. According to the New York Times, however, buyers shouldn’t see it as a sign that price drops will soon follow.

Competition is still stiff, with homes often selling within a week of initially being listed and no major declines in price—and while some of the demand may cool off due to the higher interest rates, it will take time for it to drop significantly and affect prices, as the United States still has low inventory following years of slow-building that didn’t quite recover in full from the 2008 financial crisis.

“There really is a limit to homebuyer demand, even though the market over the past few years has made it seem endless,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin chief economist said in the real estate brokerage site’s newest report. “The sharp increase in mortgage rates is pushing more homebuyers out of the market, but it also appears to be discouraging some homeowners from selling.”

“With demand and supply both slipping,” he added, “the market isn’t likely to flip from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market anytime soon.”

In fact, even with some softening and cooling in the market, prices are expected to stay higher—and could even rise still in some markets, according to Fortune. Using a model that calculated home price appreciation potential (Returns) and market risk factors (Risks) in the 100 biggest metropolitan markets in the U.S., they determined that due to a number of factors, 10 markets, in particular, will see the biggest growth in home prices before the decade comes to an end.

Those markets are Boston; San Jose, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; Durham, N.C.; Seattle; Denver; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Portland, Ore.; Madison, Wis. and San Francisco.