Median home prices rise to record high in Q2 2022

Yahoo Finance's Rachelle Akuffo breaks down new data from the National Association of Realtors showing that the median home price in the U.S. hit a record $413,500 in the second quarter.

Video transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: All right, well, shifting gears to housing now, the National Association of Realtors released new housing data today. And despite rising rates, home prices continue to climb in Q2. The median price for an existing home hit a record high of over $413,000. That's up over 14% from a year ago.

Now demand is slowing, but it's still outweighing the supply of homes across the country. So what do you think about this? Is this a time for home buyers to sort of sit and wait? Because, obviously, rents still going through the roof at a record rate.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, certainly. And, you know, I think the big dynamic here does remain the story on mortgage rates. And we were talking earlier in the show about how mortgage rates above 5% might be cooling the demand for housing. But at the same time, you see that the supply side of this equation is very much still favoring upwards trends when it comes to overall home prices.

Anyone who's in the New York metro area, for example, is experiencing that. But I want to emphasize, it seems like a lot of this is regional as well. I mean, apparently, if you go out to the San Francisco Bay Area, lot of the outflow of people who used to live there actually have taken a lot of prices down. So I don't know. Maybe it just depends on where you live.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, I know in this area, especially DC, Maryland, I know DC prices didn't move that much. But now when you look on sort of Redfin and realtor.com, you see the listings in Maryland. People are taking $10,000 off. So the prices are going down, but you obviously have a lot of people who had already locked into rents and leases who still aren't available to get into that market. And then, obviously, with the Fed raising interest rates, making it even more difficult.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Yeah, well, I mean, look, for what it's worth, I don't even bother spending time to search on Zillow because I rent here in Manhattan. It's not even worth considering buying in the New York, New Jersey metro area. So I don't know. Rachelle, if you see anything nice in Northern Virginia or Maryland, let me know. Maybe I'll have to go move down to that area.