Talking Points
- The strongest quarterly sales pace in exactly a decade put significant downward pressure on inventory levels and caused price growth to further accelerate during the first three months of 2017, according to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors®. Metro home prices have now accelerated for three consecutive quarters.
- The national median existing single-family home price in the first quarter was $232,100, which is up 6.9 percent from the first quarter of 2016 ($217,200) and the fastest growth since the second quarter of 2015 (8.2 percent). The median price during the fourth quarter of 2016 increased 5.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015.
- Single-family home prices last quarter increased in 85 percent of measured markets, with 152 out of 178 metropolitan statistical areas1 (MSAs) showing sales price gains in the first quarter compared with the first quarter of 2016. Twenty-five areas (14 percent) recorded lower median prices from a year earlier.
- The five most expensive housing markets in the first quarter were the San Jose, California, metro area, where the median existing single-family price was $1,070,000; San Francisco, $815,000; Anaheim-Santa Ana, California, $750,000; urban Honolulu, $746,000; and San Diego, $564,000.