America’s 20 Hottest Real Estate Markets for May 2016
America’s 20 Hottest Real Estate Markets for May 2016
San Francisco: Can Balcioglu/iStock; San Diego: Drazen Vukelic/iStock; Dallas: Davel5957/iStock
Welcome to the near-summer rush! Asking prices for homes hit record highs in May, and homes zoomed off the market 7% faster than they did at the same time last year, according to a preliminary analysis of realtor.com® data for this month.
“The past three months have set new records,” says Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of realtor.com. “Prior to that, the highest median list price was July last year.” Smoke’s team projects that when the books are closed for May, the median list price will be $250,000, which is 9% higher than one year ago and 2% higher than April. That is the highest since our site began aggregating statistics in 2013.
“This spring real estate market is coming in strong, just as we expected,” Smoke said in a statement. “Pent-up demand and low mortgage rates are driving consumers into the market with urgency. However, the recurring issue of limited supply is leading to higher prices.”
Smoke’s team predicts that homes will have spent a median of 65 days on the market in May, which is the same length of time as a year ago and three days faster than April.
Meanwhile, more than 550,000 listings have been added to the market so far in May (a 4% increase), but the level of inventory is still 4% lower than it was one year ago. Site traffic data on realtor.com shows 30% growth in searches for homes for sale, compared with May 2015.
Smoke’s team looked at the median days on market and the number of views per listing to find the 20 hottest markets among the country’s medium-to-large metropolitan areas. In these metro areas—which may include several nearby communities—buyers are motivated and homes for sale are here today, gone tomorrow.
While California has dominated the hot list for some months now, we’re starting to see a few surprises and more variety. Colorado maintained its two spots from the April ranking. Detroit, which has bounced on and off our monthly hottest markets list, came storming back at the 19th place this month, giving Michigan two spots (in addition to No. 11 Ann Arbor).
“It’s a very affordable market now, benefiting from economic growth and a bit of renaissance,” Smoke observes.
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Source: Real Estate News and Advice – realtor.com » Real Estate News