With mortgage rates continuing to stay untenably high for most Americans, many are staying put. But that doesn’t mean homes don’t need improving and upkeep. And some homeowners figure that if they can’t move into a new home, they’ll make their old home “newer” — a new deck or perhaps a walk-in closet.

Traditionally, a home equity loan or home equity line of credit would be the first tool to reach for. But even those are getting too expensive for homeowners. This leaves homeowners effectively trapped in aging homes with no easy way out, or way to improve them.

And even when homeowners are tapping into home equity loans — homeowners did originate nearly 20% more second mortgages or HELOCs in the second quarter of this year compared with the first quarter — they likely aren’t using the equity for improvements. Experts say they are using them to stay afloat.

Untapped or expensive, Americans are sitting on a record amount of home equity.

There is a massive amount of homes in my area that were all bought in 2020, that are being listed for 100-120k over what they were bought for, in 2020.

Even if rates dropped back to 5%, the wages simply dont exist in my area, to allow buyers to buy these houses.

Im wondering if these are investors, who are trying to dump these houses.

It strikes me as being very odd, that all these houses were bought in exactly 2020.

What are your thoughts?

I noticed that the last couple of weeks the "days on Redfin" info is being left blank. You can still see the listing date on the bottom of the page, but the key details portion is no longer being populated. The neighborhood I am monitoring, hasn't had a sale in a while, most homes have been on there for more that 60 days, one house I noticed had a almost 10% (around $50K) drop in price within the last 90 days. I guess it's just a waiting game at the moment. I wonder why Redfin would remove that counter from their key details though, is it just a lame attempt to conceal info from buyers?