Metro Atlanta home sale prices cooled in January, group says

Median home prices fell in metro Atlanta last month, but still finished up 7.7 percent from the levels of a year ago for an 11-county area, according to the Atlanta Realtors Association.

During January, the median price for the 2,927 sales in the metro area was $225,000. That was down from $237,000 in December, but up from $209,000 a year ago.

Gwinnett County led the way with the most home sales last month: The county chalked up 644 units sold and a median sales price of $218,000, according to the report.

Behind Gwinnett were Fulton with 514 sales, Cobb with 483 and DeKalb with 439.

The highest median price was in Fulton: $271,000.

Tight supply has been an ongoing problem for the area’s real estate market, and the relative shortage remains. January inventory represented barely three months of sales, less than half the amount in a healthy market, according to experts.

That imbalance gives the advantage to sellers as buyers sometimes find themselves bidding against each other for desirable homes, said Bill Rawlings, president of Atlanta Realtors.

“As a result, median home prices continue to rise over 2015,” he said.

The number of new listings in January jumped 45 percent from December, which is typically a slow month for real estate. However, the supply of new listings in January was just 0.7 percent higher than it was in January of last year.