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The median price for a U.S, single-family home in 2021’s third quarter reached $363,700, 16 percent higher than a year earlier and the fastest rate of increase since 1968, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported.
Prices were up in 182 of the 183 metro areas the NAR monitors, the association said, with 142 of the areas showing a year-on-year increase of at least 10 percent.
Areas showing the greatest price hikes:
- Austin, Tex., 33.5 percent;
- Naples, Fla., 32 percent;
- Boise, Id., 31.5 percent.
Among the ten markets where home prices inflated the most, five are in Florida, the NAR said.
Low mortgage rates and the new normal of remote work continues to drive demand, the NAR noted.
“The geographic shifts that are becoming possible in the era of remote working are really starting to settle in,” David Doctorow, CEO of Move Inc., parent of home listing website Realtor.com, told The Wall Street Journal.
“We believe we’re still in the early stages of all those shifts,” he said.
“I believe more homes will hit the market as early as next year,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a WSJ interview.
“That additional inventory, combined with higher mortgage rates, should markedly reduce the speed of price increases,” he added.
TREND FORECAST: We maintain our forecast that housing prices will remain high. And considering that they are being juiced up with real money unlike the subprime mortgage scam that artificially boosted real estate in the early 2000’s and caused the Panic of ’08… this time when equity markets and the economy collapse, housing prices will decline, but not as dramatically as back then. However, in those cities where housing prices have been boosted the highest, they will fall the deepest.