10 Markets with Fastest Rising Real Estate Prices

According to monthly data released by Realtor.com, the south dominated a list of 10 markets with the highest year-over-year increases in median list price in April. Out of the 146 metro areas considered nationwide, southern metros dominated the top ten.

The highest jumps were seen in two Florida markets. The median list price in Fort Myers-cape Coral rose 25.7 percent to $225,000, and it rose 8.5 percent to $239,000 in Miami. These two markets were the only metros in the top 10 to move properties at a rate slower than the national median of 95 days. The median age of inventory for each of these markets was 116 and 129 days respectively. Fort Myers-Cape Coral and Miami also saw the biggest year-over-year drops in inventory: -25.3 percent and -29.9 percent, respectively.

Shreveport-Bossier City, La., had an 8.1 percent increase, to $173,000. In the U.S. overall, the median list price fell 4 percent year-over-year in April, to $191,900.The three other Southern metros to make the list were Charleston, W.V.; Tyler, Texas; and the Virginia segment of the Washington, D.C. metro area. The Washington, D.C., metro was the fastest-moving among the 10 markets with a median inventory age of 57 days.

Two Midwestern metros (Columbia, MO, and Peoria-Pekin, IL) and two Western metros (Fort Collins-Loveland, CO; and Anchorage, Alaska) made the list. No market in the Northeast was among the top 10.

Year-over-year, eight of the 10 metros saw their inventory decline last month, six of them by double-digit percentages. Only Anchorage and Tyler saw their total listings rise to 15.7 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively. Nationally, total listings fell 8.3 percent.

Western metro areas had the fastest-dropping median list prices among the top 10 markets. Two of the top 10 are in the South and two are in the Midwest. All 10 witnessed double-digit declines compared to April 2010. There were no Northeastern markets in the top 10 list.

The biggest price decline was seen in Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc, CA. It was down 26.2 percent to $498,250. This market was also one of two to see its inventory rise year-over-year, by 6 percent. The other was Reno, NV, with a 9.5 percent increase.

Inventory declined by double digits in six of the remaining eight markets. Savannah, GA, experienced the sharpest decline: -48.3 percent. Savannah was also one of three markets with a median age of inventory above the national median. The market's median inventory age was 198 days in April, though that represents an 11.2 percent decline from April 2010.

To obtain the median age of inventory for each market, Realtor.com subtracted a property’s listed date from whichever was earlier, its end listing date or the end of the time period, and took the median of all the resulting individual days on the website.