Median home prices remained the same or decreased in 17 states and half of all analyzable metro areas from April to May 2020, according to new figures from Attom Data Solutions.
Across the country various metro areas experienced median monthly price declines in May, including in Charlotte, North Carolina (-10 percent); Detroit (-7%); Billings, Montana (-7%); and Honolulu, Hawaii (-3%).
“Typically, prices increase each year as winter gives way to the spring buying season,” Attom’s report reads. “For example, more than three-quarters of states and metro areas with at least 100 single-family home and condo sales in May 2020 saw median values climb in both March and April of this year, commonly going up by 2 percent to 6 percent each month. Those gains tracked fairly closely with changes from February to March and from March to April in 2017, 2018 and 2019.”
If this year were to follow historical trends, home prices would have continued to rise in May. However, prices stayed the same or decreased in 53 percent of the 160 metro areas analyzed by Attom.
Courtesy of Attom Data Solutions
“The latest price picture does remain notably mixed and potentially volatile,” Attom’s report states. “A few dozen states and metro areas continued to shrug off the pandemic with price gains of at least 5 percent in May 2020. That suggests that the nearly unbroken run of increases since 2012 across most of the country is far from over.”
The number of sales across the nation have also taken a hit over the past few months, with sales off by about 31 percent in the West, 44 percent in the Northeast and South, and 53 percent in the Midwest, compared to the same time last year.
Prices took the hardest hit between April and May 2020 in the West, where prices dropped in about two-thirds of the region, compared to half of the South and Midwest, and a third of the Northeast.
Courtesy of Attom Data Solutions
Prices dropped month-over-month in eight out of 10 of the largest metro areas, including in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (-14%); Washington, D.C. (-6%); and Miami, Florida (-3%). Conversely, New York, New York (+9%); and Dallas, Texas (+2%) saw price gains.
States with at least 1,000 sales in May that were hit the hardest by median price drops included Pennsylvania (-8%), Louisiana (-7%) and California (-4%). However, Washington (+10%), South Carolina (+10%) and New York (+9%) all saw significant median price gains.
