Redfin Report: U.S. Home Sales Post Biggest Increase in More Than 2 Years in August

SEATTLE, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- (NASDAQ: RDFN) — U.S. home-sale prices increased 2.7 percent year over year in August to a median of $312,200 across the 217 metros Redfin tracks, according to a new report from Redfin (www.redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage.

Home prices have been growing in a tight range between 1 and 3 percent year over year since September 2018.

"Although home-price gains remained relatively modest in August, supply and demand are now heading back toward sellers' favor," said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. "Home sales are accelerating as buyers eat into a diminishing number of homes for sale. While these trends are to be expected given that mortgage rates have been declining since late last year, global economic uncertainty and talk of a looming recession in the U.S. are staving off many aspects of hot seller's market—think bidding wars, fast sales and huge price escalations—at least for now."

The metro areas that saw the biggest price gains were all smaller, affordable places, led by Knoxville, TN (15.3%), Camden, NJ (12.7%) and Greenville, SC (11.8%). Just six of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks saw a year-over-year decline in their median sale price, the biggest of which was in San Jose, California, where home prices fell 11.6 percent from a year earlier.

Home sales shot up 10.8 percent in August year over year—the largest increase since March 2017.

The big overall sales increase was driven by relatively affordable metro areas, with the largest year-over-year sales jumps recorded in Camden, NJ (38.6%), Baltimore, MD (27.6%) and Minneapolis, MN (26.7%).

The supply of homes for sale fell 5.7 percent year over year, the biggest decline since April 2018. Housing inventory is falling even faster than Redfin expected it to, thanks to a dearth of new listings, which fell 3.7 percent year over year in August, the largest decline on record since Redfin began recording this data in 2012.

The biggest declines in the number of homes for sale were in Tacoma, WA  (-26.8%), Salt Lake City (-26.1%) and Tulsa, OK (-24.4%)—all relatively affordable metros. The three metro areas with the biggest increases in the number of homes for sale were all metro areas with home prices well above the national median: San Jose (12.5%), Oxnard, CA (11.5%) and Honolulu, HI (11.4%).

Measures of competition still indicate that the housing market was slightly cooler in August than it was a year earlier. The speed at which homes went off the market slowed slightly, to 41 days, up from 39 in August 2018. This is a continuation of the trend over the past eight months, when the speed of sales has slowed by an average of two days compared to last year. The share of homes sold above list price fell to 23.2 percent in August, down from 25 percent a year earlier, following the same trend that we have seen for over a year.

Also, 28 percent of homes listed for sale had a price drop in August, up from 27.4 percent in August 2018. This is the second-highest rate of price drops on record, only surpassed by the 29.6 percent rate last October.

To read the full report, including charts and additional metro-level highlights, please visit: https://www.redfin.com/blog/housing-market-news-august-2019. For downloadable data on all of the markets Redfin tracks, visit the Redfin Data Center.

About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer's favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country's #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry's lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 85 major metro areas across the U.S. and Canada. The company has closed more than $85 billion in home sales.

For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent, visit www.redfin.com. To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin Data Center. To be added to Redfin's press release distribution list, subscribe here. To view Redfin's press center, click here.

SOURCE Redfin

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