Prices Fall in America’s Richest Housing Market

After years of increasing values, America’s real estate market has weakened, according to new research from Realtor.com. In December, the median price of a home for sale dropped 1.8% from the same month last year to $402,502. Price movements varied considerably from city to city.

Homes for sale were on the market for 70 days nationwide, which made December the slowest in five years. Realtor.com commented, “However, the time a typical home spends on the market is still eight days less than the average December from 2017 to 2019.”

Only one of the top 50 housing markets based on metro populations has median prices of homes for sale that are over $1 million. That market is San Jose, at $1,268,500. That is down 2.3% from December of last year. The median days of homes on the market was 50.

The number two market in home valuation levels also suffered a decline. San Francisco posted median prices in December of $889,000, down 10.9%.

Florida cities suffered home value decreases as well, perhaps because of recent hurricanes that damaged parts of the state. This has driven home insurance prices up across most of the state.

Compared to the same month last year, home values in December dropped 9.9% in Miami to $522,500. Values in Tampa fell 6% to $395,000. In Jacksonville, they retreated 5.7% to $384,500.

Home prices increased sharply in several cities with extremely low prices. They rose 9.1% in Cleveland to $239,950. In Detroit, they were up 6.2% to $249,900.

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