US house prices have been resilient amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Zillow research shows.
The median price of sold homes in May was $263,408, up 4.6% year-on-year.
This still represents a slowdown from 5.5% in March and 5.3% in April.
Jeff Tucker, Zillow economist, said: “As surprising as it might have seemed at the time, sellers who forged ahead with listing their homes this spring were richly rewarded, when buyers buoyed by record-low mortgage rates flooded their listings with offers.
“Now, word is getting out that the housing market is on solid ground, so more listings are belatedly rushing to market, extending the busy spring shopping season well into summer.
“The huge Millennial first-time home-buying wave is still cresting, pushing demand above what’s still very limited supply, so sellers are likely to find eager buyers for months or even years to come.”
In April, new listings of the most-expensive homes dropped the furthest and fastest, while affordable listings were less affected.
This contributed to year-over-year growth in median prices slowing from 4% in the last week of March to 1.1% in early May.
Sales on many of those homes likely closed in May, which would tilt the composition of sales toward more-affordable homes, ultimately lowering the median sale price.
Soon we could see the opposite trend, as new listings of high-end homes have surged.
