Tag Archives: Housing Prices

Home prices may be up across the nation—and setting record highs, at that—but affordability is actually up at the moment. What’s causing this increase in homebuying power? An Index released today may have the answers we’re looking for.

According to new analysis, it costs significantly more to live in the country’s most popular neighborhoods—which are scattered across the West Coast and Southern U.S. But exactly how much more do homes run in these areas? The numbers might surprise you.

A new report shows that not all major U.S. markets are basking in escalating home prices. Nine metros are actually seeing median prices drop. Metros in Texas and the South comprise all but two of those markets.

Home price appreciation rates are pretty disparate across the nation, according to a new report released on Friday. In fact, while 16 percent of U.S. markets saw housing prices jump 40 percent since the year 2000, another 30 percent of cities actually saw prices decline over the same period. Nominally, prices rose in 97 out of the nation’s 100 biggest metro areas last year. A result of high demand and tightening supply, affordability is on the downslope, too. According to the report, about 19 million U.S. households spent more than half of their annual incomes on housing in 2015.

The ever-climbing housing prices don’t seem to be holding buyers back. In fact, according to recent data, three of the nation’s biggest cities—Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.—are all seeing steep sales inclines over the year. New data shows sales volume in Baltimore is up 10.2 percent since last May—a jump of more than $1.2 billion. In Washington, D.C., volume’s up 7 percent over the year, or $3.1 billion, and in Chicago, sales transactions rose 6.2 percent for the year. Days-on-market is another stat that has steep increase as of late. In Chicago, it fell from 87 to 77 over the year, while in Baltimore and D.C., it dropped to 19 and 10 days. Baltimore’s 19 days-on-market is the lowest monthly level the city’s seen in 10 years.

On Tuesday, the S&P Dow Jones published its data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, a trio of indexes that measure change in the prices of residential homes on a national composite average, a 10-city composite average, and a 20-city composite average. March’s data shows a slow but steady rise in the price of homes on all three of the indexes measured, a trend which David Blitzer, the Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones, thinks will continue in the months ahead.

New data shows that the West—specifically the Northwest—had the top-performing market for Q1 2017. Seattle and Portland had two of the strongest showings in terms of price growth, while the region as a whole saw prices rise 8 percent over the year. The worst market for the quarter was Memphis, Tennessee.

Markets in the West led national housing price gains over the year. CoreLogic’s latest Home Price Index shows that March prices rose steadily from February and sharply from a year ago. And prices should keep rising through the next 12 months.

With rising home prices and mortgage rates, new construction, and income growth will be vital to keeping buyers interest in the market.

The concept of the inner city has changed radically since the 1970s when central districts were synonymous with crime and poverty, according to one analysis.