The majority of the country’s metropolitan areas experienced robust year-over-year home-price gains in the third quarter, with the national median price showing the strongest annual growth in nearly eight years, according to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors.
The median existing single-family home price increased in 88 percent of measured markets, with 144 out of 163 metropolitan statistical areas showing in the third quarter compared with the third quarter of 2012. Fifty-four areas, 33 percent, had double-digit increases, while 19 had price declines.
In Massachusetts, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area ranked 77th out of the 163 metropolitan areas across the country tracked by NAR, with a 7.6 percent price increase for single-family sales in the third quarter. Several other Massachusetts cities did far better, with Worcester coming in 31st, up 14 percent, Barnstable 44th at 11.2 percent and the Providence, R.I.-New Bedford-Fall River area in 51st place, up 10.3 percent. Springfield fell to 95th place, with prices up only 4.8 percent, while Pittsfield was one of the few metropolitan areas to see price declines, with single family prices down 0.4 percent in the third quarter, putting it in 146th place.
In the second quarter, price gains were recorded in 87 percent of metro areas from a year earlier, while in the third quarter of last year, 81 percent of available areas showed annual increases, but only 18 percent of markets rose by double-digit amounts.
But those price gains may slow as the year winds down, said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.
"Rising prices and higher interest rates have taken a bite out of housing affordability," Yun said in a statement. "However, we have the ongoing situation of more buyers than sellers in the market, so lower sales will help to take the pressure off home price growth and allow them to rise slowly at a single-digit growth rate in 2014."
Despite the price spike, homes remain affordable in much of the country, according to NAR.
The national median existing single-family home price was $207,300 in the third quarter, up 12.5 percent from $184,300 in the second third of 2012, which is the strongest year-over-year increase since the fourth quarter of 2005 when it jumped 13.6 percent. In the second quarter the median price rose 12.2 percent from a year earlier.
The declining number of distressed sales accounts for some of the price increase, NAR suggested. Distressed homes-foreclosures and short sales generally sold at discount-accounted for 14 percent of third quarter sales, down from 24 percent a year ago.
Inventory remains tight across much of the country. The absolute number of homes for sale is up, with 2.21 million existing homes available for sale at the end of Q3 2013, compared with 2.17 million homes on the market at the same time last year. But with the number of sales rising, the average supply during the quarter was five months, down from 5.9 months in the third quarter of 2012.
Total existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, rose 5.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million in the third quarter from 5.06 million in the second quarter, and were 13 percent above the 4.74 million level during the third quarter of 2012. Sales were at the highest pace since the first quarter of 2007, when they reached 5.66 million.
In the condo sector, metro area condominium and cooperative prices-covering changes in 55 metro areas-showed the national median existing-condo price was $205,400 in the third quarter, up 15.1 percent from the third quarter of 2012. Forty-nine metros showed increases in their median condo price from a year ago and six areas had declines.
Regionally, total existing-home sales in the Northeast jumped 10.5 percent in the third quarter, and are 15.9 percent above the third of 2012. The median existing single-family home price in the Northeast was $256,800 in the third quarter, up 4.5 percent to from a year ago.
