Summit Valuations, LLC, a full service valuation company, announced the release of its August Residential Real Estate Market Overview, which is based on data collected in June. This month's report includes an analysis of real estate industry data for the first half of 2017 by Summit Chief Valuation Officer Mark Melikian.
“Looking back at the first six months of 2017, we see a lot of fluctuation in many of the metrics we track,” Melikian said in his report. “We saw the median sales price of existing homes; the seasonally adjusted annual rate of homes sold, the month supply, the pending home sales index, unemployment rates and mortgage interest rates all fluctuate throughout the first six months of this year.”
Melikian said that despite challenges with inventory levels, the industry started out in January with a 3.5 month supply of existing homes for sale and it has risen steadily each month to its current level of 4.3 months. During the same time, the median sales price of an existing home rose from $227,300 in January to $263,800 in June, increasing every month, he said in his report.
“The year-to-date increase in median price is 16 percent, which is greater than the annual increases that occurred over each of the past two years combined,” Melikian said. “According to the statistics we’re tracking, the annual increase in median price during 2015 was 6.8 percent; in 2016 it was 5.2 percent.”
In the report, Melikian raised the question of sustainability, suggesting that continued improvement would depend upon future inventory levels, whether unemployment rates continue to fall and the direction of mortgage interest rates.
As for the monthly statistics, the report reflected that in June, the median sales price, the seasonally adjusted number of homes sold the pending home sales index and mortgage interest rates all increased year over year. The month supply of existing homes listed for sale and the unemployment rate both decreased year over year.
On a regional level, the South had the highest number of existing home sales and the West had the highest median price. The Midwest experienced a month over month increase in the number of seasonally adjusted existing home sales while all other regions saw month over month decreases. All four regions experienced increases in the median sales price month over month, led by the Midwest at 5.6 percent, the report said.