Weekly Special | May 19, 2018

Values Push Higher For Existing Homes

Median home values have moved nearly 3% higher in 2018 when compared to all of 2017.

Today, “the middle” home in the market is worth $117 per square foot, which makes 2018 the fourth highest year on record (trailing only 2006-2008).

Home values bottomed in 2012 at $90 per square foot, so the current reading suggests that homes have appreciated at an annualized rate of 4.47% since the bottom of the market.

To put this another way, if you purchased a home for $152,000 in 2012, it is likely to be worth around $197,600, a gain of $45,600 (which is 30% in just 6 years). Furthermore, if you sold today, you would have a gain of about $30K after closing costs.

Considering the majority of people in this price range would have invested about $12,000 to purchase the home, that’s an annualized return of 16.5%.

While this is a somewhat simplified analysis of real estate as an investment, it certainly supports the evidence that the housing market is back and thriving.

The original one-page Weekly Special PDF is still available.