UNITED STATES, Sept. 12 (DC Times Online) — Realtor.com’s August housing analysis found that median listing prices per square foot fell year over year in 36 of the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas.
Nationwide, the measure declined 1.8% from a year earlier. It was the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year declines, according to Realtor.com’s August data report.
The figures show where asking prices are weakening most. They do not measure the prices buyers ultimately paid in completed sales.
The biggest declines
The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas, metropolitan area recorded the largest annual drop. Its median listing price per square foot fell 8.1%.
The 10 largest declines were:
- Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas: down 8.1%
- Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida: down 5.6%
- Memphis, Tennessee-Mississippi-Arkansas: down 4.1%
- San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California: down 3.9%
- San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas: down 3.6%
- Denver-Aurora-Centennial, Colorado: down 3.4%
- Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Maryland: down 3.2%
- San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, California: down 2.7%
- Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida: down 2.6%
- Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Oregon-Washington: down 2.4%
The median listing prices in those 10 metropolitan areas ranged from $299,995 in Memphis to $908,700 in San Francisco, Realtor.com reported.
The San Francisco figure refers to the broader metropolitan area, which includes Oakland and Fremont, rather than the city alone.
What the measure means
A listing price is the asking price set by a seller. Price per square foot divides that asking price by the size of the home, allowing analysts to compare properties of different sizes.
The median is the midpoint of the listings measured. Half of the listings are above that figure and half are below it.
Because this is a listing measure, it is not the same as a closed-sale price. Realtor.com’s report does not establish how much buyers paid after negotiations, nor does it show the sales volume or the number of listings in each metropolitan area.
Regional pattern
Realtor.com reported that national median listing prices declined year over year in three regions. The Northeast fell 3.6%, the South fell 2.6% and the West fell 2.1%. The Midwest was flat.
The largest declines were concentrated in markets that grew rapidly during the pandemic-era housing boom, including Austin, Tampa, San Antonio and Denver. Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel said those markets were continuing to give back some of their gains from 2020 through 2022.
That explanation is an assessment from Realtor.com, not a finding based on transaction records in the August report. The supplied data does not independently measure the effects of mortgage rates, inventory, price reductions or local sales activity.
Not every major market declined
Fourteen of the 50 largest metropolitan areas did not record a year-over-year decline in median listing price per square foot. The biggest gains were in Providence, Rhode Island, up 9.3%; Indianapolis, up 4.4%; and Chicago, up 3.6%.
The mixed results show that the national decline does not apply evenly across the country. A falling national or regional measure can include both weaker markets and places where asking prices are still rising.
For buyers and sellers, the Realtor.com data is most useful as a measure of market direction and asking-price conditions. It does not, by itself, show whether homes are selling faster, whether sellers are accepting lower offers or whether a particular neighborhood is following the broader metropolitan trend.