Home sales reached their highest pace in a decade in the first quarter of 2017 as property prices continue to escalate, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ latest quarterly report. I’ll quote Lawrence Yun the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. “Prospective buyers poured into the market to start the year, and while the increased presence led to a boost in sales, new listings failed to keep up and hovered around record lows all quarter”
The Commerce Department is reporting that new construction home starts are down 2.6% from a year ago. Due to the increase in sales and reduction in inventory for April, they don’t see the rise in prices slowing anytime soon.
The country gets divided into 4 parts for reporting purposes and we being in the West region, saw Existing-home sales rise 1.6 percent in the first quarter and are 7.4 percent higher than a year ago. Median single-family home price: $342,500, up 8.4 percent from the first quarter of 2016.
I have a link to the NAR article below which has lots of stats for the stats hounds!
