Atlanta tops nation in home sales, Redfin says

The number of home sales in Atlanta was 8.1 higher than a year ago.

Total sales for the nation were 127,000, says Redfin.

Metro Atlanta’s median sales price during the month was $190,000, up 5.6 percent from the same month a year ago, but awfully reasonable sounding in the national scheme: 37 other metro areas have higher median home prices.

At the top of the charts is San Francisco with a median price of $1.1 million.

But Atlanta wasn’t even highest in Dixie. Among the Southern-ish cities with higher prices than Atlanta were Austin ($270,000), Miami $242,000), Charleston ($237,950), Nashville ($229,000), Raleigh-Durham ($223,900) and Richmond ($194,900).

One reason why prices are going up is that pesky supply–demand thing.

That has been the story in metro Atlanta real estate for several years now. In a time of modestly improving demand, there just hasn’t been enough supply.

The result has been a very sluggish market in some areas and some fairly strong price increases in others.

Don’t expect a quick turnaround in that story, Redfin says: there were 19,335 homes are for sale in Atlanta, down 13.6 percent from the same month a year ago, and 5.3 fewer homes for sale than the month before.