Published by REALTOR.com | August 9, 2022
Just as sellers are slowly learning to downshift expectations and buyers are collectively hoping for a break, there are still places across the country seeing huge year-over-year increases in median home list prices—some well over 30%
Navigating the U.S. housing market in summer 2022 is seeming a bit like a high-stakes game of Perception vs. Reality.
Perception: After two years of wildfire growth, the real estate business—buffeted by inflation and higher mortgage rates— is coming to a screeching halt.
Reality: There are still way more people looking for homes than there are homes themselves.
Perception: After unprecedented shortages of homes to buy, new listings are now flooding the market.
Reality: Inventory levels, while improving, are still at historic lows.
Perception: Finally, home prices have stopped going up—and are maybe coming down!
Reality: Price growth is slowing down—but certainly not everywhere.
Just as sellers are slowly learning to downshift expectations and buyers are collectively hoping for a break, there are still places across the country seeing huge year-over-year increases in median home list prices—some well over 30%.
“There are several indicators that the national housing market is rebalancing in a more buyer-friendly direction. But in these top 10 markets with the biggest price growth, we’re generally seeing signs that the rebalancing seen elsewhere has not progressed as far.”
–Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale
To find the places with the greatest protracted price increases, the Realtor.com data team analyzed the 100 largest metropolitan areas and calculated which ones in July saw the highest percentage of home listings with price increases on Realtor.com. The data team looked at all active listings (not including sales) for single-family and multifamily homes in July 2022 versus July 2021. To achieve geographic diversity, we included only one metro per state. (Metros include the main city and surrounding towns, suburbs, and smaller urban areas.)
Besides rising prices, the most common aspect among these 10 cities is affordability, says Hale.
“Eight of these 10 markets have median home list price well below the U.S. average,” she says. “The two exceptions, Miami and Honolulu, are warm-weather spots benefiting from ongoing remote work trends and the resumption of domestic and global travel.”
Click here to see the top 10 cities where sellers are still ruling the roost—for now, anyway.
