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Second-Quarter Home Resale Prices Show Record Gains

The median existing-home price nationwide rose 7.4% to $168,900, the association reported.

The pace of price increases was strongest in Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, where homes sold for a median $212,600, up 23.5% from the second quarter of 2002.

Placing second was Providence, RI, at $228,900, up 23.2%. Homes rose 20.6% in Los Angeles-Long Beach, to $337,200, the third most rapidly appreciating housing market in the country.

The most expensive housing was in the San Francisco Bay area, where the median price was $560,200, followed by Anaheim-Santa Ana (Orange County, CA) at $471,700 and Boston at $409,100.

The median resale price of homes sold in Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX, was $87,300, the lowest in the country. Next to lowest was Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY, at $90,400, followed by South Bend-Mishawaka, IN, $91,000.

The news in the second quarter was exceptional, according to David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, but price appreciation is expected to moderate as mortgage interest rates climb from their cyclical lows.

“Normally, even in very strong sales markets, there are about a half-dozen metros somewhere in the country that for one reason or another have a temporary price decline,” said Lereah.

Home prices climbed 13.6% in the Northeast to a median $182,500, 8.6% in the West to $233, 200, 6% in the Midwest to $140,800 and 5.9% in the South to $157,400.

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