In This Article:
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that a majority of US metro areas are seeing home prices increase.
Yahoo Finance housing reporter Claire Boston comes Wealth to take about this trend, and how it is namely affecting Rochester, New York, characterized as the toughest housing market in the country this spring.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here.
We've got new data from the National Association of Realtors revealing the vast majority of metro areas registered price increases for existing home sales in the first quarter of the year. Here with the details, we've got senior housing reporter, Claire Boston. Claire, what do we know on this?
Hi, Brad. So you are right. In 83% of measured metro areas home prices increased in the first quarter. Uh, once again, this is the latest sign that affordability in this country is very, very challenged. But, you know, that was actually a little bit of a smaller amount of counties seeing an increase, uh, than the prior quarter when it was 89%. So, you know, maybe things are getting a little bit easier. Um, and then nationwide, we saw a 3.4% increase from a year ago that brings the average home in this country to over $400,000.
Now, there's another story you're watching as well. A city here with, particularly here as we're thinking about what is taking place within the city and the population of just over 200,000, one of the toughest housing markets in the US this spring. So where is it and why is there such tough competition?
Right. It's a little counterintuitive, but one of the toughest housing markets in the country right now is Rochester, New York, upstate New York, 200,000 people, about a million people in the metro area. Uh, and yet home prices there are up 12%. The average time on market is eight days. I talked to a bunch of people who have experienced this market and they say competition is extremely intense. And what we're seeing in Rochester and some other cities is basically, these are cities that are catching up to national home prices. It is still really affordable to live there. In Rochester, the average home costs about $225,000. And as a result, uh, the competition for those homes is steep. They're also not building very much. And then going back to the NAR data, you know, I was looking, some of the biggest home price increases were happening in places like Syracuse, New York, and Montgomery, Alabama. And those are also towns that I think are pretty similar to Rochester in that, you know, overall, they are still relatively affordable places to live, and that makes competition harder than ever in those markets.
