Home buyer foot traffic can be a strong indicator of the demand for housing, and foot traffic has been strong this spring, according to data from NAR, which measures foot traffic by the number of times SentriLock lock boxes are opened.
“Despite a steady upward movement in mortgage rates in late April and May, demand for housing remains strong,” NAR notes on its Economists’ Outlook blog. NAR’s index for foot traffic was 59 in May – 13.8 points higher than the same time last year. A measure above 50 indicates that more than half of about 200 markets analyzed had stronger traffic in May of 2015 than the same month a year prior.
Of the 14 cities that NAR tracks on a local level, the strongest improvements in foot traffic compared to last year were in San Diego, Iowa City, and El Paso, Texas.