In an article released by Inman today, the National Association of Realtors provided us with a consensus forecast which surveyed 20 economists. This forecast is predicting that the next two years will see gross domestic product (GDP) rise, mortgage rates inch back up and the unemployment rate fall. Of course there is still a significant amount of macro uncertainty around the rollout of a vaccine. The forecast predicts that unemployment will fall to 6.2% for the full year of 2021 and drop to 5% in 2022.
NAR's forecast also predicts that mortgage rates will rise from their historic lows, but not significantly in the next year. The forecast believes that the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will hover around 3% in 2021 (up from the current number of 2.5 - 2.7%) and climb to 3.25% in 2022.