Average American Home Price in 2016 Revealed. How Does Yours Stack Up?
Average American Home Price in 2016 Revealed. How Does Yours Stack Up?
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As the curtain call for 2016 (finally) approaches, our data team looked back at every home listed on realtor.com® during the year—and there’s quite a range. We’ve seen $1 homes (more than a couple!), a $200 million mansion, a 63,890-square-foot fixer-upper, and scads of tiny homes.
Whew! So what’s even normal between all those extremes? What does the average American home right now actually look like—and cost?
Well, we’ve got your answer, friends, worked out to the final decimal point: The average home in our listings costs $412,222.94, has 3.287 bedrooms and 2.568 bathrooms.
So, how does yours stack up?
If you are a dedicated reader of realtor.com, you might have noticed that the average price is higher than the median price of $250,000, which is what we usually cite to give an idea of a middle-of-the-road home.
Need a quick refresher of Stats 101? The average price is the sum of all home prices divided by the number of homes, and the median is the exact middle if all homes’ prices are listed in ascending (or descending) order. As a result, the average price is skewed by the upper reach of the market—like that crazy, over-the-top $200 million manse!
So what are all these stats telling us? Well, the average price in 2016 is 11% higher than in 2015, so homeowners likely can be confident that their home is increasing in value. Homes are selling fast, too. An average home gets snapped up seven days faster than in 2015, in just 108.717 days. (No rounding up or down in this article!)
Can we mention that Americans still love to supersize it? The average home is getting both bigger and taller, filled with more bedrooms and bathrooms. That’s because new construction has been tilted toward the high end.
“The high cost of land and construction have limited the ability of builders to deliver more affordable homes, especially in the most sought-after locations,” says our chief economist, Jonathan Smoke. On the buyers’ side, 2016 has seen fewer first-time buyers due to high competition. The remaining buying force—mainly luxury and trade-up buyers—also prefer larger homes. We’ve seen a bit of a shift toward more affordable new construction recently, but not enough to move the needle on our calculations.
So let’s dive into the home stats!
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Source: Real Estate News and Advice – realtor.com » Real Estate News