Home prices in February increased 8.8 percent from a year earlier to a median sale price of $285,700 across the markets Redfin tracks. This was the strongest price appreciation since March 2014. February also marks six years, or 72 consecutive months, of year-over-year price increases since the market bottomed out and began to recover.
Constrained by a lack of supply, February home sales were nearly flat, up just 0.4 percent compared to last year. February saw an 11.4 percent decline in the overall number of homes for sale, marking the 29th consecutive month of year-over-year supply declines.
Notwithstanding affordability concerns and low inventory, buyer demand remained strong and market speed continued to increase. The typical home that sold last month went under contract in 53 days, a week faster than one year prior. More than one in five (21.1%) homes that sold last month went for more than their list price, up from 19.6 percent last February. Of the offers Redfin agents wrote for their clients in February, 56 percent encountered competition compared to 58 percent last February.
“Mortgage rates pushed upwards in February to the highest levels in nearly three years as home prices increased by their fastest pace in nearly four years,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “A growing economy, healthy buyer demand and low inventory drove the ramp up in prices last month. Combining even slightly higher rates with price growth this strong will make it even more challenging for first-time buyers to find affordable homes to buy this year. The good news for sellers is modest rate increases are unlikely to curtail buyer demand. Just 6 percent of respondents to a survey commissioned by Redfin said they would cancel their home buying plans if rates rose above 5 percent.”
The median value of off-market homes was $283,300, as measured by the Redfin Estimate, up 8.9 percent from last year. 58.1 percent of homes on the market in February were priced above their Redfin Estimate value, with a Redfin-List-to-Estimate Ratio of 100.3 percent, indicating that sellers are slightly overpricing their homes.
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Redfin Estimate
Below are market-by-market breakdowns for prices, inventory, new listings and sales for markets with populations of 750 thousand or more. For downloadable data on all of the markets Redfin tracks, visit the Redfin Data Center.
