April Home Prices Up 16%, Inventory Crunch Begins to Ease in Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker

SEATTLE, May 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology-powered real estate broker Redfin (www.redfin.com) today released its Real-Time Home Price Tracker for April 2013, showing a strong real estate market nationwide. Home prices are up in 19 major U.S. markets, and the inventory shortage is beginning to show improvement. With more homes available to buy, home sales posted the strongest March to April gain in four years. Lastly, homes are selling faster than ever, setting a record for the highest percentage ever going under contract in less than two weeks. Here are the details:

Home prices:

• April home prices increased 16% year over year, and rose 5% since March.

Inventory:

• While down 26% from last year, inventory showed a monthly increase of 6.4%, the largest gain in three years.

Sales volume:

• Home sales rose 10.7% from 2012, and 7.25% from March. This is the largest monthly gain in four years.

Sales velocity:

• The percentage of listings going under contract within 14 days of their debut hit the highest point on record at 35.2%, topping last month's record of 34.5%.

This report is the earliest monthly analysis of home prices, sales and inventory across 19 U.S. markets, published weeks before any other index, based on the local databases used directly by Realtors to list properties and record sales. Click the following link to read the complete Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker. http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/05/real-time-price-tracker-april-2013.html

Market-Specific Highlights and Lowlights:

Home prices:

• All of the 19 cities measured saw home prices rise both year over year and month over month.
• San Francisco led the price gains with a 34.5% year over year increase.

Inventory:

• Inventory came in at 176,068 total listings across the 19 metro areas studied, an increase of 17,874 homes since March.
• Only three markets saw inventory shrink this month: California's Inland Empire lost 9%, Denver was down 2%, and San Diego fell 2%.
• Phoenix was again the only market that saw an increase in homes for sale from 2012, with a 13.2% rise in inventory year over year.

Sales volume:

• Long Island saw the biggest gains, with home sales up 53.4% from April 2012.
• San Francisco's sales volumes took the hardest hit with a 9.9% drop from a year earlier.

Sales velocity:

• The top four fastest-selling markets (% of homes selling in two weeks or less) were: San Jose (63.3%), San Francisco (57.3%), Denver (54.3%) and Ventura (51.4%).
• Boston was again the slowest-selling market, with only 3.2% of homes selling in 14 days or less.

About the Real-Time Home Price Tracker
As a broker with access to dozens of Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) used by real estate agents to list properties and record sales, Redfin gets data within minutes of a sale, pending sale or listing activation, well before any government, media or analytics organization. Using MLS fields, Redfin is able to distinguish houses from condominiums and townhouses, which often sell for less money. To validate the accuracy of the data and to account for sales not handled by a real estate agent, Redfin compares MLS data with county records as they become available, using sophisticated algorithms to identify and resolve disparities about square footage or price for each address. Data at the local and neighborhood level are available in a spreadsheet, and the report methodology is available as an Adobe document.

About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate broker that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded and run by technologists, Redfin has a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not sales-people, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions. Redfin's online tools feature all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don't pay brokers a commission. Because Redfin is a brokerage and a member of the multiple listing services (MLSs) in each market it serves, Redfin's website and mobile apps show all the agent-listed homes for sale, and does not show any homes as active that are already off the market. The company serves 21 U.S. markets and has closed more than $8 billion in home sales. In 2012, Redfin was named one of The DIGITAL 100: World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies by Business Insider. Follow us on our blog (blog.redfin.com), Twitter (@redfin), and Facebook (facebook.com/redfin).

SOURCE Redfin

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