As we assess the damage done to our homes here in New Jersey by Hurricane Sandy, it appears that the housing market around the country is in increasingly good shape. The median selling price rose in the third quarter of 2012 for 120 out of the 149 metropolitan areas surveyed by the National Association of Realtors. That's 81 percent of all U.S. cities showing an increase in prices.
Overall, home prices jumped 5 percent in September over the same month a year earlier. That's the biggest 12-month increase we've seen since June of 2006. Nationwide, the median price for an existing single-family home was $186,100 in the third quarter of this year.
One of the major factors was the dwindling number of homes for sale. At the end of the third quarter, 2.32 million existing homes were available for sale, 20 percent less than had been available in the year-earlier period. A big factor in that is the fact that all those foreclosures have been clearing off the market; we'll have to wait and see what effect Sandy has on home sales.
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