Home prices jumped to all-time highs in almost two-thirds of U.S. cities in the fourth quarter as buyers battled for a record-low supply of listings.
Prices for single-family homes, which climbed 5.3% from a year earlier nationally, reached a peak in 64% of metropolitan areas measured, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Of the 177 regions in the group's survey, 15% had double-digit price growth, up from 11% in the third quarter.
Home values have grown steadily as the improving job market drives demand for a scarcity of properties on the market. While prices jumped 48% since 2011, incomes have climbed only 15%, putting purchases out of reach for many would-be buyers.
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The consistent price gains "have certainly been great news for homeowners, and especially for those who were at one time in a negative equity situation," Lawrence Yun, the Realtors group's chief economist, said in a statement. "However, the shortage of new homes being built over the past decade is really burdening local markets and making homebuying less affordable."
Sales of previously owned homes, including single-family houses and condos, increased 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.62 million in the fourth quarter, the Realtors said. At the end of December, only 1.48 million existing homes were available for sale, 10.3% less than a year earlier.
The most expensive markets were San Jose, California, where the median price was $1.27 million, followed by San Francisco, the Irvine, California, area, Honolulu and San Diego.
The San Jose area had a 26% increase in prices, the biggest of any region, followed by Reno, Nevada, and the Putnam/Dutchess County area, north of New York City. The biggest decline was in Glens Falls, New York, where prices dropped almost 12%. Cumberland, Maryland, and Elmira, New York, followed.
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