Atlanta’s housing market bounced back in a major way in December, but remained down for 2014.

Creative Commons 3.0: Daniel Mayer, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2006_Dogwood_Festival_from_Meadow_in_Piedmont_Park_looking_toward_Midtown_Atlanta_skyline-zoom.JPG

After a few months of lackluster sales activity, the Atlanta-area housing market shows considerable strength in December, with total home sales rising 19.2 percent from November, according to the latest report from the Atlanta Board of Realtors.

Though sales were still down 0.2 percent from Dec. 2013, all other stats were uniformly positive: median sales price was up 2.9 percent monthly and 9.3 percent yearly to $212,000; and average sales price was up 3.0 percent monthly and 9.2 percent yearly to $274,000.

Atlanta’s Most Encouraging Housing Trend

Of course, the most encouraging trend for Atlanta’s housing market came in the inventory front. With 14,252 units, December’s inventory was up a whopping 30.6 percent from Dec. 2013, and new listings (at 2,840) were up 11.2 percent. Still, inventory was down slightly from November, and months-supply declined slightly to 3.8 months.

Ennis Antoine, ABR’s president, spoke to the many positive developments in Atlanta’s housing market in 2015.

“It has been another recovery year for the Atlanta home market as well as the economy,” Antoine said. “Inventory is rising because sellers are capitalizing on recent appreciation and listing more properties. There is a lot of discussion regarding potential change in interest rates, but with virtually no inflation, rates will likely remain low for most of 2015. These reasons along with positive economic forecasts lead me to believe Atlanta will have an extremely healthy and strong 2015 real estate market.”

See our infographic below for a month-by-month look at how 2014’s home sales compared with 2013: