Much has been made about the impact of rising mortgage rates on the real estate market this season, but also weighing on the market are home property values, which continue to move higher at the same time as the available inventory continues to decline.
That was on display in May, when the online real estate company Zillow found that home values appreciated just slightly above 8%. The average home price now stands at $216,000, although the property values are much higher in certain pockets of the country. Take San Jose, California, for one example. According to Zillow, the median home value there is $1.27 million, which is up close to 26% compared with May 2017. In Las Vegas, Zillow found that home values increased 15.5% year over year for May, and in Seattle, they were up 12.2% in the same time frame.
At the same time that property values are marching higher, the number of homes for sale has been declining. According to Zillow, shoppers had 5.3% fewer homes to choose from in May 2018 compared with a year ago. The markets that saw the largest decline in available properties included Denver, Atlanta and Pittsburgh. In Denver and Atlanta, home buyers had 15% few homes to choose from compared with May 2017, and in Pittsburgh, the decline was 13%. There is good news from all of this: Zillow said that the pace of inventory declines has been slowing during the past 10 months.
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