The latest US Residential & Foreclosure Sales Report, conducted by Realtytrac.com, reveals that house buying activity in the States is continuing to pick up.
Source: lonelyplanet.com
According to the report, the combined total of residential properties, including single family homes and condominiums and town homes, sold at an estimated annualised pace of 5.6 million in August, up 2 per cent from the 5.5 million pace in July and up 12 per cent from the 5 million pace in August 2012.
The national median sales price in August was $175,000, up by 3 per cent from the previous month and by 6 per cent from a year ago. This was the 17th consecutive month where median home prices have increased annually nationwide.
“Seven years after the housing bubble burst, US home prices are clearly on the rise again, up 23 percent from the bottom in March 2012 although still 26 below the peak of the housing price bubble in August 2006,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “This recovery in home prices and sale volume continues to be driven in large part by cash buyers and institutional investors, as evidenced by the increasing share of sales represented by those two categories in August,” he added.
Indeed, all-cash purchases represented 45 per cent of all residential sales in August, up from 39 per cent in July and 30 per cent in August 2012. Among metro areas with a population of 1 million or more, those with the highest percentage of all-cash sales were Miami, Florida (69 per cent), Detroit, Michigan (68 per cent), Las Vegas, Nevada (66 per cent), and Jacksonville, (65 per cent), and Tampa, Fla. (64 percent), both Florida.
The states which recorded the biggest annual increases in median prices in the year to August were California (up 32 per cent), Nevada (up 26 per cent), Georgia (up 21 per cent), Arizona (up 20 per cent) and New York (up 19 per cent).