El Paso's resale home prices hit a record high in 2017, new data show.
The median, or market midpoint, price for an existing single-family, or resale, home averaged $151,500 last year in El Paso County, the National Association of Realtors recently reported.
That's only 2% above the 2016 median resale price — but 9.3% above 2012, the last time El Paso County had a record-high resale price, the national Realtors group reported. In 2012, El Paso's median resale price was $138,600.
"I think that's good for El Paso and good for the economy," said Tom Torres, president of the Greater El Paso Association of Realtors, and a Realtor for Clear View Realty in El Paso.
"It's good that the value of homes is going up --it helps with (homeowners) gaining equity, gaining wealth," Torres said.
On the other hand, it also means property taxes will be higher on homes, but that is money that goes to schools and funds roadwork and other improvements in this area, Torres said.
New home prices are even higher, Torres noted. In January, El Paso's median new home sales price was $167,950, according to local Realtors' data, he reported.
Even with the increase in prices, El Paso continues to lag other cities in Texas and other areas of the Southwest in home values, Torres noted.
Texas had eight of the 114 metro areas in the country that hit record highs for resale home prices in 2017, the national Realtors data show.
Austin led 11 Texas metros surveyed by the national Realtors association with a median resale price of $295,800 last year.
Regionally, Albuquerque didn't hit a record high price last year, but its median resale price increased to $196,600; Tucson's median resale price also did not reach a record high, but also increased — to $210,300.
In El Paso's price neighborhood, Oklahoma City had a record high median resale price last year of $154,300.
The median resale home price nationally also set a record high at $248,800, an increase of 5.6% over the previous resale high in 2016 of $235,500, the Realtors association reported.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement that last year "capped off another year where home prices in most markets ascended at a steady clip amidst improving sales and worsening inventory conditions."
Torres, the El Paso Realtors group president, said El Paso is a bit different than many other markets across the country because it has a large inventory of homes for sale.
Last week, El Paso had about 3,500 resale and new homes on the market, or about a four-month inventory, Torres reported.
That makes El Paso a buyers' market, which generally keeps sales prices lower than in a sellers' market, Torres said.
