April Median Home Price Sets New Record High; Home Availability Sets New Record Low

According to Redfin, the Seattle-based technology powered real estate brokerage, the national median home-sale price hit a record high in April of $370,528 — up 22% year-over-year. April 2021 set other new records as well. For example, active listings — the count of all homes that were for sale at any time during the month — declined 27% year over year to their lowest level on record. But the annual decline in the number of homes for sale slowed slightly from last month. The typical home sold in 19-days. The average sale-to-list ratio, a measure of how close homes are selling to their list prices, hit a record high of 101.6%. Redfin does note that pandemic-driven lockdowns significantly slowed homebuying and selling in April 2020, which means the year-over-year trends for home prices, pending sales, closed sales and new listings are somewhat exaggerated. In remarks prepared for the release of the report, Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said, “To put the scarcity of housing into context, there is plenty of room for supply to increase and demand to taper off, and we would still find ourselves in a historically strong seller’s market. While Americans brace themselves for a lot of changes as workplaces and schools reopen, the story of the housing market will largely remain the same. There simply aren’t enough homes for sale in America for everyone with the desire and the means to buy one right now. Until new construction takes off — over the course of years, not months — home prices will continue to increase. This housing boom is nowhere close to over.”