- ATTOM Staff
- January 21st, 2020
- Home Sales & PricesMost Recent Articles
Median Home Sales Prices Reach Record High of $258,000 in 2019; Homeowners Staying Put Longer as Average Homeownership Tenure Rises to New High
IRVINE, Calif. – Jan. 23, 2020 — ATTOM Data Solutions, curator of the nation’s premier property database and first property data provider of Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), today released its Year-End 2019 U.S. Home Sales Report, which shows that home sellers nationwide in 2019 realized a home price gain of $65,500 on the typical sale, up from $58,100 last year and up from $50,027 two years ago. The latest profit figure, based on median purchase and resale prices, marked the highest level in the United States since 2006 – a 13-year high.
That $65,500 typical home seller profit represented a 34 percent return on investment compared to the original purchase price, up from 31.4 percent last year and up from 27.4 percent in 2017, to the highest average home-seller ROI since 2006.
Both raw profits and ROI have improved nationwide for eight straight years. However, last year’s gain in ROI – up less than three percentage points – was the smallest since 2011.
“The nation’s housing boom kept roaring along in 2019 as prices hit a new record, returning ever-higher profits to home sellers and posing ever-greater challenges for buyers seeking bargains. In short, it was a great year to be a seller,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM Data Solutions. “But there were signs that the market was losing some steam last year, as profits and profit margins increased at the slowest pace since 2011. While low mortgage rates are propping up prices, the declining progress suggests some uncertainty going into the 2020 buying season.”
Among 220 metropolitan statistical areas with a population greater than 200,000 and sufficient historical sales data, those in western states continued to reap the highest returns on investments, with concentrations on or near the west coast. Metro areas with the highest home seller ROIs were in San Jose, CA (82.8 percent); San Francisco, CA (72.8 percent); Seattle, WA (65.6 percent); Merced, CA (63.2 percent) and Salem, OR (62.1 percent). The top four in 2019 were the same areas that topped the list in 2018.
