April home sales were up 5.4% and prices up 6.5% from the previous year, real estate brokerage Redfin reported Thursday. The median sale price increased to $275,000.
April was the third month in a row in which prices rose above 6%. Last year, growth in home prices eased and settled around 5.5%
While inventory remained flat year-over-year, newly listed homes for sale jumped 10.7%, the third straight month of growth at around 10%.
It has become a sellers' market as 21% of homes sold above their asking price, a 0.3% increase from April 2014 and the first year-over-year increase in 19 months.
"Typically, this rate peaks in June, meaning we could see an even more competitive market this year than at the peak of 2013," Redfin reported in a press release. "On average, homes sold in 31 days, two days faster than this time last spring. More than a third of all new listings sold in less than two weeks."
Washington, D.C., home prices rose 5% in April from a year ago. Sales rose more than 10%.
April was Chicago's fourth month in a row of double-digit growth in home prices. The median sale price was up 10% from a year ago. The number of properties sold fell 4.5%.
In San Francisco, median property prices rose about 26% from a year ago to almost $1.25 million. Half of homes sold there were on the market for less than two weeks. The number of new listings exceeded inventory by the end of the month, for the fourth month in a row.
