Atlanta’s home prices were up an average of 5.8 percent during the past year, slightly better than average gains across the country, according to a much-watched national survey released Tuesday.
Atlanta's price hike beat the 5.1 percent national gain, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index, a calculation based on a three-month average.
Atlanta – along with other cities in the south and west – is a leader among the country's real estate markets, said David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P Dow Jones index committee.
“Nationally, home prices have risen at a consistent 4.8 percent annual pace over the last two years without showing any signs of slowing,” he said. “Overall, residential real estate and housing is in good shape.”
Sales of existing homes has been running at a pace of 5.5 million per year, Blitzer said.
However, national inventory – that is, the number of homes per sale – has been larger than in Atlanta. Overall, the country’s inventory represents about five months of sales – a modest tilt in favor of sellers. In Atlanta, inventory has been consistently running much lower than that, experts say.
Atlanta, one of the strongest of the housing markets during the housing bubble, burst more painfully than most. There were an estimated quarter-million foreclosures.
So the recovery is continuing.
Despite steady growth for more than three four years, Atlanta’s average prices are still lower than their peak and some homeowners who avoided foreclosure are still “under water,” their houses worth less on the market than they owe on their mortgages.
Still, average prices have risen solidly, even if the pace of that rise has been slowing.
Experts said the market had split – with a scarcity of sale listings among modestly-priced homes and a surplus of homes for sale at the top end of the market.
And now that surplus at the higher tiers of the market may be trickling down to more modestly priced homes.
“There’s getting to be a glut of inventory at the high end,” said Nancy Keenan, realtor at Keller Williams Peachtree Road. “You may have 100 choices at this point. And that is starting to happen at the lower price ranges.”
“Now, we are looking at a glut of inventory at $600,000 and up.”
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