Median home prices fell in metro Atlanta last month, but still finished up 7.7 percent from the levels of a year ago for an 11-county area, according to a report issued today by the Atlanta Realtors Association.
During January, the median price for the 2,927 sales through the metro area was $225,000.
That was down from the $237,000 median in December, but up solidly from the $209,000 median price of homes sold a year ago.
Gwinnett County led the way with the most home sales in last month: The county chalked up 644 units sold and a median sales price of $218,000, according to the report.
Behind Gwinnett were Fulton with 514 sales, Cobb with 483 sales and DeKalb with 439 sales.
The highest median price of homes sold was in Fulton: $271,000.
Supply has been an ongoing problem for the area's real estate market. There remains a relative shortage of homes for sale. That inventory in January represented barely three months of sales, less than half of the ratio in a healthy market, according to experts.
That imbalance gives the advantage to sellers as buyers sometimes find themselves bidding against each other for desirable homes, said Bill Rawlings, president of Atlanta Realtors.
“As a result, median home prices continue to rise over 2015,” he said.
Prices were up in December, the association reported.
The number of new listings in January jumped 45 percent from December, which is typically a slow month for real estate. However, the supply of new listings in January was just 0.7 percent higher than it was in January of last year.
