Housing Market Update: Half of Homes Are Now Selling Above List Price

Housing Market Update: Half of Homes Are Now Selling Above List Price

by
Updated on October 26th, 2022

Homebuying demand may have peaked for 2021 as pending sales and mortgage purchase applications have both pulled back in recent weeks.

Key housing market takeaways for 400+ U.S. metro areas:

Unless otherwise noted, this data covers the four-week period ending May 16.

Note: At this time last year, pandemic stay-at-home orders halted homebuying and selling, which makes year-over-year comparisons unreliable for select housing metrics. As such, we have broken this report into two sections: metrics for which a year-over-year comparison remains most relevant, and metrics for which it makes more sense to compare to the same period in 2019.

Metrics to compare to 2020:

All but one of the metrics highlighted in the following list set a new housing record going back at least as far as 2012, when Redfin’s data began.

  • Home prices hit a record high of $352,975 and were up 24% year over year, also a record. Asking prices increased to $358,975, also a record high.
  • A record high of 50% of homes sold for more than their list price, up 23 percentage points from the same period a year earlier.
  • A record-high 101.7% average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, up 3.2 percentage points year over year. This means that the average home sold for 1.7% more than its asking price.
  • A record low of just 17 days on market for homes that sold during the period, down 18 days from the same period in 2020.
  • A record-high 58% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market.
  • 45% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within one week of hitting the market, down just slightly from the record high in the four-week period ending May 9.

Metrics to compare to 2019:

  • Pending home sales were up 22% from the same period in 2019.
  • New listings of homes for sale were down 12% from the same period in 2019. Compared to the four-week period ending April 18, new listings were up 3%, compared to a 7% increase during the same period in 2019.
  • Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 49% from the same period in 2019.

Pending sales for the seven-day period ending May 16 were down 10% from four weeks prior, compared to an 8% increase during the same period in 2019, suggesting that homebuying demand may have peaked for 2021.

Pending Sales Fell 10% in Four Weeks

Mortgage purchase applications decreased 4% week over week (seasonally adjusted). For the week ending May 20, 30-year mortgage rates increased slightly to 3.00%.

“We are seeing some early signs that the market has reached its maximum temperature,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Mortgage purchase applications and pending sales have decreased, which may be a sign that some buyers would rather spend their money on restaurants, vacations, and other things they have held back on for the past year, instead of on housing now that the threat of the pandemic is dissipating in America. But make no mistake, the housing market is still very hot and will remain hot for the rest of the year.”

Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of all the metrics used in this report.

Home Sale Prices Up 24% From 2020

Asking Prices on New Listings Up 15% From 2020

Pending Sales Up 57% From 2020, Up 22% From 2019

New Listings of Homes Up 26% From 2020, Down 12% From 2019

Active Listings of Homes For Sale Down 37% From 2020, Down 49% From 2019

58% of Pending Sales Under Contract Within Two Weeks

45% of Pending Sales Under Contract Within One Week

Days on Market Fell to a Record Low of 17 Days

Nearly 50% of Homes Sold Above List Price

Sale-to-List Price Ratio Approaches 102%

Avatar

Tim Ellis

Tim Ellis has been analyzing the real estate market since 2005, and worked at Redfin as a housing market analyst from 2010 through 2013 and again starting in 2018. In his free time, he runs the independently-operated Seattle-area real estate website Seattle Bubble, and produces the "Dispatches from the Multiverse" improvised comedy sci-fi podcast.

Email Tim

Be the first to see the latest real estate news:

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By submitting your email you agree to Redfin’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Scroll to Top