The median metro Atlanta home price last month was $222,130 – up 6 percent from a year before, according to Re/Max of Georgia.
The most active city in the region was Atlanta, where there were 477 homes sold, Re/Max said, while Marietta placed second with 281 sales. The highest median price was in Cumming: $315,000.
It was “a remarkably strong fall season,” said Jeanette Schneider, senior vice president of Re/Max Georgia. “December capped off what has been a very strong year for the housing market in Atlanta.
“We end the year on a positive note and this sets us up for a great start moving into the new year,” she said.
The market’s apparent health, however, is not balanced: Transactions actually fell slightly from 2015. Perhaps more crucially, the number of homes listed for sale – inventory – was down 9 percent from a year earlier.
The shortage of listings pushes prices higher a little faster than they might rise otherwise. And those increases undermine the affordability of Atlanta area market, especially for first-time homebuyers.
In the past year, the number of starter homes in metro Atlanta slipped 1.4 percent, according to Trulia, a San Francisco-based online housing data firm.
During that time, a typical starter home’s price rose 7.5 percent to $80,000 – an increase that outpaced improvements in wages and salaries, Trulia said.
The median buyer of a starter home needed more than 20 percent of his or her income to make the purchase, Trulia said. That compares to 2012, when a starter home required just 13.8 percent of the buyer’s income.
With inventories limited and interest rates up, the pace of price increases this year will likely slow, according to projections by real estate companies like Zillow and Redfin.
“Home prices cannot rise faster than incomes and inflation indefinitely,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the Case-Shiller index committee in a statement issued with last month’s report from the company.
Metro housing market, December 2016
Median sale price: $222,130
Closings: 3,908
Avg. days on market: 59
Source: Re/Max of Georgia
Homes sold in December:
Atlanta, 477
Marietta, 281
Cumming, 217
Lawrenceville, 205
Median sale price:
Atlanta, $300,000
Marietta, $267,000
Cumming, $315,000
Lawrenceville, $201,000
Source: Re/Max Georgia
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