Housing Market White Hot After Labor Day: Home Prices Up 13%, Pending Sales Up 27%

New listings of homes for sale were 6% above 2019 levels

Key housing market takeaways for 434 U.S. metro areas during the 4-week period ending September 13:

Median home sale price increased 13% from 2019 to $319,261—the highest on record. The 13% year-over-year increase was the largest since October 2013.
Pending home sales climbed 27% year over year.
New listings of homes for sale were up 6% from a year ago.
Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 28% from 2019 to a new all-time low. The rate of year-over-year supply declines has remained consistent for the past couple of months.
46.4% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market. This is the highest level since at least 2012 (as far back as our data on this measure goes), and has held relatively steady for the last 15 weeks.
The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, rose to 99.3%—an all-time high and 1.1 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
For the week ending September 13, the seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index was up 22.5% from pre-pandemic levels in January and February.

“Seasonality is going to become more noticeable now that schools have started and Labor Day is over,” said Redfin lead economist Taylor Marr. “There is still a lot of room for more homes for sale to hit the market to make up for lost ground during the pandemic. This increase in supply is likely to drive more strong year-over-year growth in home sales. Leading indicators of home sales like mortgage applications and pending sales are still showing tremendous strength as we head into fall.”

Redfin agents in areas affected by wildfires report that wildfire risk and smoke is impacting the market, at least a little.

“We do have some homebuyers who are rethinking whether or not they want to purchase in an area that is prone to wildfires,” said San Francisco Redfin agent Tom Baumgartner. “It’s too early to tell if there will be a long-term impact. The smoke right now has definitely been a factor when we’re prepping properties to sell. We’re dealing with a lot of ash, outdoor surfaces are covered and that requires some extra cleanup, like power washing.”

Sonoma, CA Redfin agent Starling Scholz also noted that while a number of homebuyers who had recently begun to search for a home are now stepping back, the overall market is still very busy, and the fires have only slightly dampened an intense seller’s market.