Home Prices Hit Two-Year High in August, Up 5% from 2011 in Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker

SEATTLE, Sept. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology-powered real estate broker Redfin (www.redfin.com) today released its Real-Time Home Price Tracker for August 2012, showing an annual price gain of 5 percent across 19 major U.S. markets. Although home prices typically decline from July to August, this year, they held steady, another indicator of a housing market getting stronger. The report also showed:

• Home sales on the rise: Increasing 1.4% over last year, but fell 2.5% since July, a typical decline for this time of year.
• Homes selling quickly: The percentage of listings that sold within 14 days of their debut increased slightly in August, from 26.7% in July to 27.6% last month.
• Inventory still down: The number of homes for sale declined 28.5% from August 2011 to August 2012, and by 4.5% since July.

"In our business, Redfin saw a monster surge in August closings," said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. "While September now seems likely to be down nearly 20% from August's peak, we were surprised after Labor Day to see a relatively large number of new customers begin touring homes for the first time, which has given us reason to be optimistic about the rest of the fall and even the year ahead. The main reason there aren't more sales is that there aren't more sellers, as most would-be sellers are holding out for more price gains in 2013 before listing their home, and many of today's move-up buyers just plan to rent out their old place."

This report is the earliest monthly analysis of home prices, sales and inventory across 19 U.S. markets, published weeks before any other index, based on the local databases used directly by Realtors to list properties and record sales.

Click here for the complete Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker.

Market-Specific Highlights and Lowlights:

Home Prices

• Seventeen of the 19 markets studied had higher prices than a year earlier.
• Phoenix showed the highest gain at 31% year-over-year.
• Chicago suffered the most, down 4 percent from August 2011.

Selling Velocity

• The top six fastest-selling markets (% of homes selling in two weeks or less) are all in California: San Jose (52.3%), San Francisco (45.6%), Ventura (43.5%), Inland Empire (42.8%), San Diego (41.2%), Los Angeles (39.8%).
• The slowest-selling market is Boston at 3.9%.

Inventory

• The top seven markets with the largest year-over-year drop in inventory were all in California: Sacramento (-65.7%), Ventura (62.6%), Inland Empire (57.9%), San Francisco (-56.2%), San Jose (-55.8%), San Diego (-52.4%), and Los Angeles (-52.3%).
• The market with the smallest drop year-over-year drop in inventory was Chicago with inventory 3.6% lower than last year.

About the Real-Time Home Price Tracker

As a broker with access to dozens of Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) used by real estate agents to list properties and record sales, Redfin gets data within minutes of a sale, pending sale or listing activation, well before any government, media or analytics organization. Using MLS fields, Redfin is able to distinguish houses from condominiums and townhouses, which often sell for less money. To validate the accuracy of the data and to account for sales not handled by a real estate agent, Redfin compares MLS data with county records as they become available, using sophisticated algorithms to identify and resolve disparities about square footage or price for each address. Data at the local and neighborhood level are available in a spreadsheet, and the report methodology is available as an Adobe document.

About Redfin

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate broker that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded and run by technologists, Redfin has a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not sales-people, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions. Redfin's online tools feature all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don't pay brokers a commission. The company serves 19 U.S. markets, and has closed more than $5 billion in home sales. Follow us on blog.redfin.com or our Twitter feed @redfin.

SOURCE Redfin Corporation