The Hottest Housing Market for February Is …

Phil Hall

Feb 23, 2017

California’s housing market set a new record for its median home price in May with $600,860, breaking an 11-year-old record peak price of $594,530, according to the California Association of Realtors (CAR)

From the some-things-never-change department: California continued to dominate the new Realtor.com’s Hottest Housing Markets list, with 12 markets occupying slots on the February Top 20 list.
Vallejo, Calif., took the number one spot for the first time since August, displacing San Francisco which dropped into second place. San Jose, which held second place on last month’s list, fell to fifth place, while San Diego dropped from last month’s fifth place to this month’s sixth place.

On a national level, Realtor.com determined that nearly 425,000 new listings will have entered the market in February, but that will not help alleviate inventory shortages. And complicating matters for many potential homeowners is property appreciation: the median list price of $250,000 is nine percent higher than one year ago.

“Spring has arrived early this year, at least in terms of the rapid decline in the age of inventory,” Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke of realtor.com said in a statement. “Strong off-season demand powered new seasonal highs in prices and left us with a new low in available homes for sale. Potential sellers take note: This year is shaping up to favor you even more than last year.”

Link copied

Published

Feb 23, 2017

People On The Move

Keeping Current Matters Names Ratiu Chief Economist

Held similar positions with Realtor.com and NAR.

Keeping Current Matters (KCM), a Richmond, Va.-based market insight education and content provider for the real estate industry, said Thursday it has named George Ratiu the company’s chief economist. George RatiuRatiu brings decades of experience...

Analysis and Data

Fannie Mae: Banking System Instability Could Cause Recession

ESR Group says housing activity expected to remain subdued.

The U.S. economy will not see a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis this year, but a “modest recession” is still on the horizon, according to the latest projections by Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group. The ESR Group on Friday revised upward its first...