National
January home prices up 10% in biggest annual gain in 7 years
TRENDING
Home sale prices near 100% of asking prices
With active listings down 40% in a year, most homes find buyers within two weeks
The housing market is becoming even more competitive.
The sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes sell to their asking price, was 99.6 percent during the four-week period ending Feb. 28. That’s 1.6 percentage points higher than the same period last year, Inman reported, citing data from Redfin.
The ratio ended February on a high note, hitting 99.9 percent for the final week.
The median home sale price in the four-week period ending Feb. 28 was $323,600, up 16 percent from a year ago. The increase was the highest since 2016.
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January home prices up 10% in biggest annual gain in 7 years
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The median asking price also hit a record high of $347,475 during the same period, up 10 percent over 12 months.
And homes are selling faster: In February, 55 percent of homes went into contract within two weeks of being listed. That’s up 11 percentage points from a year ago. In addition, the number of active listings hit a new low, down 40 percent from a year ago.
Mortgage rates are creeping up, reaching 3.02 percent for 30-year loans during the week ending March 4. That makes home-buying more expensive, but that didn’t seem to deter would-be homebuyers. The number of mortgage applications went up by 2 percent in the week ending Feb. 26 compared the week before.
[Inman] — Akiko Matsuda