Baltimore-area home prices rise to 10-year high

Median home prices rose again in June, reaching $285,000, a 2 percent increase from last year, according to monthly data provided by MarketStats by ShowingTime based on listing activity from Bright MLS.

The June price was the highest for the month in a decade and near the top price of $289,900 reached in 2007.

The region’s housing market continues to suffer from declining inventory, with active listings of homes for sale falling 8.7 percent to 10,136 at the end of June. It was the 34th consecutive month of year-over-year inventory declines. But June was also the second month in a row in which that drop was below 10 percent.

The low inventory may explain why fewer homes were sold in June, 4,230 compared with 4,509 a year earlier. The sales volume fell 5.4 percent to $1.37 billion, year-over-year.

Despite the decline in sales, demand appears strong by other measures, with sellers fetching 97.4 percent of their asking price for homes sold in June, up from 96.6 percent in June 2017, but down from May’s recordsetting 97.5 percent. The median number of days homes were on the market before going under contract was 15 in June, four days fewer than a year earlier and the fastest sale time in the last 10 years.

Howard County continues to have the most expensive homes, with median sales prices in June up 2.4 percent to $448,000. Baltimore City remained the most affordable, with prices up 3.7 percent to $170,000.

Harford County home prices jumped the most, up 9.5 percent to $276,000. Carroll County prices were up1.8 percent to $325,000.

Baltimore County home prices dipped 0.4 percent to $249,000, while Anne Arundel County homes slid 0.5 percent to $340,000.