This week's real estate press have been very encouraging. Reports show the nation's housing market posted the strongest growth in 6 years, with nationwide home prices up 4.6% from last August. It is also predicted that September prices will continue to rise across the country. Another report detailed existing home sales climbing about 9% nationally in August from a year earlier. Mortgage rates have hit another record low, and the National Association of Realtors NAR estimates prices of existing homes will rise 10% cumulatively over the next two years.
Meanwhile, Santa Barbara continues to make headlines for its noteworthy increase in house prices. Realtor.com put together a list of the top 10 turnaround towns for the 2nd quarter of 2012, showing metropolitan areas with the fastest recovering housing markets. Santa Barbara made the list at number 10, ranked by comparing year-over-year changes in median price, median age and size of the inventory. Our housing market moved 21% faster in Q2 2012 than it did for the same quarter last year, with inventory down 31% and list prices up almost 17%. We plan to continue to make headlines with more sales in the near future!