Median home sale price jumps, inventory falls in March

CAPITAL REGION — The median sale price of a single-family Capital Region house jumped 14 percent from March 2017 to last month, while the number of houses for sale plunged 23 percent.

The number of actual closed sales, meanwhile, increased a scant 1.4 percent. The average time from listing to sale, 76 days, was virtually unchanged, as was the percentage of homes that sold for their original list price: 94.4 percent.

The statistics were released Monday by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, which compiled them from its Eastern New York Regional Multiple Listing Service.

Buyer demand is driving the price increase, GCAR said, and is likely to continue doing so through the rest of 2018. Other factors affecting the Capital Region housing market include rising wages, low unemployment and rising but still low mortgage rates.

GCAR noted that the Capital Region’s matches the nation as a whole with its decreased inventory of houses for sale from March 2017 to March 2018.

Any given month is subject to potentially large changes in either direction; quarterly or annual statistics provide a better measure of activity. For the first quarter of 2018, GCAR reported 3,495 new residential listings regionwide, down 10 percent from the first quarter of 2017. Also for the quarter, there were a total of 2,155 closed sales, up 1 percent from the year-ago quarter, and a $200,000 median sale price, up 8 percent from the first three months of 2017.

The following are the number of closed sales and median sale prices in March 2018 for the six core counties served by GCAR’s multiple listing service, along with the percentage change from March 2017: