In general, the real estate market is good for sellers and bad for buyers. People who got 3% mortgages for a decade until two years ago want to hang onto their homes. Buyers face almost 7% mortgages. According to the Case-Shiller housing index, home prices continue to rise about 3% each month, year over year. The difficulty of selling a home varies by city, particularly as measured by the median number of days a house for sale is on the market.
According to Realtor.com’s February monthly housing report, “Homes in February spent on average 66 days on the market, 11 fewer days than the average February between 2017 and 2019.” Based on this metric covering America’s 50 largest cities, sellers have become more active. “While rates remain elevated, we are beginning to see green shoots in the market as sellers grow tired of waiting for significant changes in interest and mortgage rates,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, commented.
Pittsburgh has the highest median days on the market, at 86 days, which is 30% higher than the national number. Pittsburgh also has the lowest median price of a home for sale in the 50 markets at $229,000. The national figure is $412,000
The market with the fewest median days on the market was San Jose at 22. It was also the market with the highest median price of a home for sale at $1,304,500.
These are the 15 markets where homes are on the market for the longest based on median days:
- Pittsburgh, Pa. (86)
- Buffalo-Cheektowaga, N.Y. (79)
- San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas (76)
- Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Ore.-Wash. (75)
- Kansas City, Mo.-Kan. (75)
- Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Fla. (74)
- Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla. (74)
- Birmingham, Ala. (71)
- Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark. (71)
- New York-Newark-Jersey City, N.Y.-N.J. (68)
- Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas (66)
- Jacksonville, Fla. (66)
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. (66)
- Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, Ind. (63)
- Cleveland, Ohio (61)
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