For the frustratedly diligent house-hunters of ATL, first the bad news: Home prices in the second quarter of 2016 hit a new historic peak in metro Atlanta.
Now the less terrible news for homebuyers: Atlanta isn’t alone.
The most recent U.S. Home Sales Report from RealtyTrac analyzed public sales deeds from more than 900 counties nationwide, and in metro Atlanta’s case, the median price was the highest on record at $192,000, as Atlanta Agent Magazine observed.
Atlanta, while still relatively cheap, was one of 39 metro areas to set a new watermark for home prices, joining fellow boomtowns such as Seattle and Dallas. Metro Atlanta’s average prices have ticked up 2 percent since last year, researchers found.
Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions, told the magazine that historically low interest rates have been driving the price explosions, adding that it’s likely "some of the most interest-rate sensitive local markets will see home price appreciation knocked down when the low-rate rug is finally pulled out from under the housing recovery."
In any case, metro Atlanta remains one of the few major cities with median home prices below $200,000. Comparing that against the metropolitan regions of Houston ($215,000), Dallas ($240,000), Denver ($344,500), and especially San Francisco ($755,000) lends some national perspective, per the RealtyTrac data.
In somewhat related news, the outlook doesn’t seem much brighter for penny-pinching renters of Atlanta.
According to Zumper’s National Rent Report for August, rents for one-bedroom apartments in Atlanta have jumped 4 percent in the last year — good for the 17th most expensive market in the country. (But for a top 10 market in terms of population, maybe that’s not too shabby?)
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