Us house prices up 16pc in april
Technology-powered real estate broker Redfin today released its Real-Time Home Price Tracker for April 2013, showing a strong real estate market nationwide. Home prices are up in 19 major U.S. markets, and the inventory shortage is beginning to show improvement. With more homes available to buy, home sales posted the strongest March to April gain in four years. Lastly, homes are selling faster than ever, setting a record for the highest percentage ever going under contract in less than two weeks. Here are the details:
Home prices:
- April home prices increased 16% year over year, and rose 5% since March.
Inventory:
- While down 26% from last year, inventory showed a monthly increase of 6.4%, the largest gain in three years.
Sales volume:
- Home sales rose 10.7% from 2012, and 7.25% from March. This is the largest monthly gain in four years.
Sales velocity:
- The percentage of listings going under contract within 14 days of their debut hit the highest point on record at 35.2%, topping last month's record of 34.5%.
Market-Specific Highlights and Lowlights:
Home prices:
- All of the 19 cities measured saw home prices rise both year over year and month over month.
- San Francisco led the price gains with a 34.5% year over year increase.
Inventory:
- Inventory came in at 176,068 total listings across the 19 metro areas studied, an increase of 17,874 homes since March.
- Only three markets saw inventory shrink this month: California's Inland Empire lost 9%, Denver was down 2%, and San Diego fell 2%.
- Phoenix was again the only market that saw an increase in homes for sale from 2012, with a 13.2% rise in inventory year over year.
Sales volume:
- Long Island saw the biggest gains, with home sales up 53.4% from April 2012.
- San Francisco's sales volumes took the hardest hit with a 9.9% drop from a year earlier.
Sales velocity:
- The top four fastest-selling markets (% of homes selling in two weeks or less) were: San Jose (63.3%), San Francisco (57.3%), Denver (54.3%) and Ventura (51.4%).
- Boston was again the slowest-selling market, with only 3.2% of homes selling in 14 days or less.