Home prices recently hit an all-time high for the four-week period ending on November 21, 2021, reaching an average of $359,975. This marks a 14% increase year-over-year, which is the largest increase since early September, according to a new report by Redfin.
In the past month, prices have risen four times faster than they did during the same time last year. This unseasonable surge in home prices appears to be drawing in more sellers, since the number of homes listed for sale was down less than 3% from 2020 and up 11% from 2019.
“Rising rents and rising prices on everything from gas to groceries may be motivating more people to buy homes now,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Buying a home is a type of hedge against inflation, especially with mortgage rates still near historic lows. If high inflation persists, a large home mortgage could seem a lot less expensive in just a few years.”
The asking prices of newly listed homes were up 12% from the same time last year, and up 26% from 2019 to a median of $352,250. In total, 43% of homes sold above list price, which is up from 35% a year ago. On average 4.3% of homes for sale each week had a price drop, up 0.8 percentage points from 2020 and up 0.2 percentage points from 2019.
The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, declined merely 0.1 points from 100.6% to 100.5% within the past month. This means the average home sold for 0.5% above its asking price.
Looking towards inventory, new listings of homes for sale were down 2.7% from last year, but up 12% from 2019. Since the four week period ending on October 3, 2021, new listings are down 16%, which is a smaller decline than last year’s -18% and 2019’s -21%. Meanwhile all active listings fell 22% from last year and 41% from 2019.
Homes that sold were on the market for a median of 24 days, which is down 7 days from the median last year. Nationwide, 45% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market, compared to the 39% rate a year earlier and the 28% rate in 2019. Meanwhile, 32% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within one week of hitting the market. That figure is up from 27% during the same period last year and 18% in 2019.
Mortgage applications increase 5% week over week during the week ending on November 12, 2021. Though, for the week ending November 18, 2021, 30-year mortgage rates rose back above 3% to 3.1%. Touring activity fell about 1 percentage point for the period ending on November 21, compared to the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, the Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index fell 7%, though it was still up 14% from a year earlier.
