LoginIn the first quarter of 2013, some American metro areas enjoyed housing prices at seven year highs, according to the National Association of Relators' (NAR) quarterly home price report. The biggest gains in home price were seen in markets that were hardest hit when the real estate bubble burst and prices plummeted.
Akron, Ohio, lead the nation in median home price increase, with property values up 32.7 percent to $108,300. San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Atlanta, and Phoenix all saw property value gains that exceeded 30 percent.
"The supply/demand balance is clearly tilted toward sellers in a good portion of the country," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. "Inventory conditions are expected to remain fairly constrained this year, so overall price increases should be well above the historic gain of one-to-two percentage points above the rate of inflation."
Yun went on to say that home builders could help alleviate the constrained supply of available housing by ramping up their building efforts in 2013.
In the first quarter of 2013, the national median existing single-family home price was $176,600 a year-to-year increase of 11.3 percent from $158,600 in the first quarter of the previous year.