Monday, August 10, 2020

US House Prices Continue to Rise



The U.S. property market is bucking the general economy. Usually when unemployment rates rise house prices tend to stagnate or even fall. However despite the poor economy house prices in the USA continue to rise year-on-year. In July the median price of a home in the USA was 8.5% higher than properties listed in July of last year.

Of course this isn't a uniform trend across the whole of the country. You can explore realtor.com's interactive Real Estate Price Map to explore the median listing price of properties across the United States. This map allows you to see the average price of a property in each zip-code area. It also allows you to see month-on-month and year-on-year price comparisons. This shows you where median house price listings have fallen or risen in the last month or in the last year.

Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Cincinnati have seen the biggest year-on-year increases in median house price listings. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford (both in Flrorida) were the only two metro areas in the country to see a year-on year decline in house price listings compared to July of last year.

There are two reasons why house prices may be continuing to rise despite the economic outlook. One reason is the historically low mortgage rate. The other is the decline in newly listed properties. There is a big fall in the number of properties being put up for sale compared to last year. Realtor.com believes that the "lack of newly listed homes on the market, coupled with pent-up buyer demand, is driving inventory to all-time lows and is also steadily pushing prices up higher".

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