According to a RE/MAX National Housing report, both home sales and home prices have continued at higher levels than last year. September’s median home price was higher for the eighth consecutive month than the previous year.
Median prices increased 7.8% from September 2011. Home sales followed their usual seasonal pattern and dropped lower than the levels seen in August, however they maintained a level of 0.5% higher that sales last year. Inventory was 29.1% lower than September of 2011, which might have contributed to the drop in sales from August. In addition to lower inventories creating bidding wars in some markets, they also have increased prices.
Margaret Kelly, the CEO of RE/MAX said, “Now that the summer buying season is behind us, we can clearly see that the market made a significant rebound, and 2012 is definitely the year of the housing recovery. Although we still face some serious obstacles in tight lending and shrinking inventory, we believe that the housing market will continue to recover into 2013.”
Of all the homes sold in September in the RE/MAX housing survey, the median sales price increased 7.8% higher than last year to $164,989. Out of the 52 metro areas surveyed for the September national housing report from RE/MAX, 44 areas reported higher prices than last year including 21 metro areas reporting double-digit increases.
In September, the average time a home was on the market was 81 days. That is a 13% drop from the 94 day average from last year. The average days on market continues to drop due to very low inventory.
