June Market Report: Prices Rise, Supply Flattens

Redfin reports that for-sale home prices rose 3.4% year-over-year in June, while inventory stayed flat and home sales decreased.

U.S. home-sale prices rose for the third consecutive month in June, growing 3.4 percent year over year to a median of $321,200 across the metros Redfin tracks. The growth rate of home prices was on par with the May rate and was down from a 5.5 percent year-over-year gain in June 2018.

Only six of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks saw a year-over-year decline in their median sale price, the biggest of which was once again in San Jose, where home prices were down 4.9 percent from a year earlier. Oxnard, CA (-4.8%), Oakland, CA (-2.0%), Seattle, WA (-0.5%), Lake County, IL (-0.1%) and Los Angeles, CA (-0.1%) rounded out the list of metro areas with price drops.

Home sales fell 8.0 percent in June compared to a year earlier. This was a sharp reversal from May, when home sales increased 2.2 percent from a year before. The decline was broad—80 of the 85 metros tracked by Redfin saw year-over-year home sales fall in June.

With prices growing, flat inventory, and homes selling as fast as ever, we were surprised to see that the number of sales fell as much as it did in June. The 8 percent drop was the fourth largest decline in eight years. When our economists investigated they found that after adjusting for the number of weekdays in a month (Fridays in particular, since that is a common day for home closings), the sales were down just 3.5 percent year over year.

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