Metro Atlanta home prices have far surpassed pre-recession peak, reports show

It might sound like the most obvious statement of the past decade, but Atlanta’s real estate market has more than rebounded since the Great Recession.

It’s the extent of that continuing upswing, however, that could be surprising.

Newly published research from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index shows metro Atlanta home prices have jumped more than 81 percent since the housing market dipped to its lowest lows in 2012, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Also, today’s home prices are nearly 14 percent higher than the pre-recession peak in 2007, the Case-Shiller studies indicate.

In just the past year, metro Atlanta has seen home prices jump 4.2 percent, which is nearly twice as much as the average increase of the 20 largest metro areas. (Those numbers don’t factor in new construction.)

Atlanta’s uptick was trumped only by the metros of Phoenix, Tampa, and Charlotte, which saw a 5.8, 4.9, and 4.8 percent increase, respectively.

Overall, home prices now aren’t quite what they were a few months ago, but economists expect 2020 to bring more price spikes, the AJC reported.

RentCafe

The growth, of course, doesn’t come without a downside.

For instance, a severe shortage of lower-priced homes has made it difficult for first-time buyers to find starter homes in metro Atlanta.

Today many millennials, despite being pegged in a report last year as the country’s most active homebuyers, could be destined to rent for life.

It should come as no surprise that rent prices in metro Atlanta are skyrocketing, too.

The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in metro Atlanta is now around $1,474 monthly, per studies by RentCafe.

That number represents a 65 percent leap since 2009. Nationwide, the average rent jumped by about 36 percent in the past decade.