Atlanta’s housing market ended 2015 on a high note
The Metro Atlanta housing market closed out 2015 in a very positive fashion, with home sales rising by both yearly and monthly measurements.
According to the Atlanta Board of Realtors (ABR), residential sales in December totaled 4,054, which is a 4.7 percent increase from Dec. 2014 and a 24.7 percent increase from November.
Lane McCormack, ABR’s 2016 president, spoke confidently on the strength of Atlanta’s market.
“December was a very healthy month for the Atlanta housing market,” McCormack stated in ABR’s report. “Once the final numbers are in for 2015, I am confident that we will see a year of immense improvement, setting the stage for a return of more normal conditions in the months to come.”
Here is a graph we assembled on 2015’s home sales, and how they compared with 2014:
Price and Supply in Metro Atlanta Housing
The median sales price for Metro Atlanta was $225,000 in December, an increase of 7.1 percent from Dec. 2014 and 1.4 percent from November. The average sales price, at $286,000, was similarly positive, rising 5.5 percent yearly and 1.8 percent monthly.
Atlanta’s tight housing inventory likely played a role in those price increases. At the end of December, there were 13,840 units on the open market, a 2.9 percent decrease from a year ago that pushed inventory to its lowest level of 2015, a 3.2-months supply. And though new listings, which totaled 2,904 in December, rose 2.3 percent year-over-year, they were down 16.4 percent from November.
Home Sales by County
ABR also reported on county-wide home sales, which broke down as follows:
- Gwinnett County had the most home sales at 830; the median sales price was $237,000, and the average sales price was $206,000.
- Fulton, which had 792 sales, had a median sales price of $342,000 and an average of $423,000.
- There were 663 home sales in Cobb, where the median sales price was $235,000 and the average sales price was $270,000.
- Finally, DeKalb, where the median sales price was $227,000 and the average was $292,000, there were 623 sales for the month.