The national median existing single-family home price reached a new peak during the second quarter of 2018, rising 5.3 percent from the second quarter of 2017 to $269,000, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
The median price in the second quarter of 2017 was $255,400.
The prices continued upward in the midst of “staggeringly low” housing inventory levels throughout much of the country, according to NAR. At the end of the second quarter, there were 1.95 million existing homes for sale, which was 0.5 percent above the 1.94 million homes for sale at the end of the second quarter of 2017.
“The ongoing supply crunch affecting much of the country worsened for most of the second quarter, as the growing number of interested buyers in many markets overwhelmed what was already a meager level of available listings,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “With not enough homes for sale, multiple bids caused prices to rise briskly and further out of the reach of some prospective buyers.”
The number of existing-home sales fell from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.51 million in the first quarter of 2018 to a rate of 5.41 million, a drop of 1.7 percent. The rate is 2.4 percent below the 5.55 million recorded in the second quarter of 2017.
With a solid economy, healthy labor market and a large millennial population, home sales should be much higher, according to Yun.
“However, with mortgage rates trending higher, it will only happen if supply levels improve enough to cool the speedy price growth in a majority of the country,” Yun said.
Regionally, the median existing single-family home price in the Northeast grew 2.3 percent compared with the second quarter of 2017 to $288,900. In the Midwest, the median price increased 3.5 percent to $210,600. The median price in the South saw a 4 percent increase to $238,500, and the median in the West grew 8.3 percent to $403,300.
