Report: Listing-to-Contract Timelines Accelerate in April

A newly launched ""Redfin"":http://www.redfin.com/ report shows the housing market blazed along at record speed in April as buyers tried to outpace each other in bidding wars.

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According to the online brokerage's Fastest Real Estate Markets Report, the number of homes that went under contract within two weeks of debut increased 3 percent month-over-month and 39 percent year-over-year in April. The number of homes going under contract within one week of listing, meanwhile, increased 2 percent from March and 54 percent from last year.

Both measures set a new record since at least January 2011, when Redfin began following that data.

Rachel Musiker, an analyst for the company, attributed the market's breakneck speed to the heavy imbalance between high demand and low supply as well as new technology that compresses the timeline from listing to tour to offer.

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""Today, people can find out within minutes when a new listing has hit the market and to schedule an in-person home tour with [a] real estate agent, all from a smartphone,"" Musiker wrote on Redfin's ""blog"":http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/05/fastest-real-estate-market-report.html. ""While market conditions like supply and demand will fluctuate over time, changes brought about by technology are most likely creating a 'new normal' for the overall pace of home buying and selling.""

Mia Simon, a Redfin agent based in Silicon Valley, said the environment has forced buyers to take more drastic measures when going after their desired homes.

""I've been seeing more homebuyers writing pre-emptive offers in an effort to get under contract before a bidding war erupts,"" Simon reported. ""Typically, these pre-emptive offers are well above asking price, non-contingent, and from homebuyers who have already lost out in several bidding wars.""

Out of the 22 markets tracked in the new report, the fastest-moving in April was San Jose, California, where 65 percent of new listings were under contract within 14 days. The slowest markets were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Triangle, North Carolina, which each reported about 10 percent of homes under contract within two weeks.

Only four markets saw a slowdown, Redfin reported: Chicago (where the number of homes under contract within two weeks was down 23 percent); Las Vegas (down 3 percent); Phoenix (down 2 percent); and Dallas, Texas (down 1 percent).