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Economists predict the real estate market will recover in 2024 after a spike in mortgage rates and a shortage of properties sent sales tumbling to a 28-year low in 2023. Home sales likely will climb 14% this year, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors®. That would be the biggest annual gain in more than four decades, according to NAR data. Lower mortgage rates in 2024 — NAR is predicting the average will be 6.3% by the fourth quarter, down from 7.8% in 2023's final three months — will entice more owners to give up the super-low rates they got during the pandemic and put their homes on the market, Yun said. That will cause the inventory of properties for sale to climb about 30% from 2023's all-time low, he said. "There is pent-up demand among sellers that will be unlocked as rates move lower," Yun said in an interview. "All the families with new-born babies, or new marriages, or divorces, have been waiting for rates to come down to move to something that suits them better."