Realtor.com [1] released its February Monthly Housing Trend Report, which showed an increase in listing prices as well as an increase of housing inventory. The increase in both list price as well as inventory points to a "strong early beginning to this spring's home buying season," the report said.
Nationally, median listing price increased to $199,000, year-over year. The gain of median listing price represents a 7.6 percent increase from the previous year, and is up 2.05 percent from the previous month
"Overall these figures indicate a continued reinforcement of steady gains and market stabilization that we've been watching since late last summer," said Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Move, Inc [2]., which operates Realtor.com.
Posting a decrease by 0.9 percent from the previous month, the median age of inventory shrunk slightly to 114 days.
The report found that inventory increased by 10.1 percent nationally year-over-year, with total listings of approximately 1.7 million.
"Seller confidence is the factor to watch as we head into the spring home buying season, and these are very encouraging indicators—not only are more homes coming onto the market, but typically we don’t see a rise in asking prices this early into the year. This is the market these sellers have been waiting for," Berkowitz added.
The top five metros for median list price all reside in California: San Francisco ($849,000); Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc ($700,000); San Jose ($669,000); Orange County ($599,900); and Ventura ($523,950).
Chicago, Illinois topped the list with the most total listings at 45,998, followed by Atlanta, Georgia (34,045); Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona (23,654); Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (21,909); and Riverside-San Bernardino, California (21,221).