by Jay Goldstein

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story analyzing the housing market’s strength locally and nationally. To summarize:

  • According to Realtor.com., homes listed for sale nationally in February were down almost 50% from the same time last year. In the metropolitan area of Philly, Camden and Wilmington listings were down 46%.
  • com reports during the first two months of 2021, there were nationally about 207,000 fewer homes newly listed than the average during the same time over the last four years. In Philly in the last quarter of 2020 there were 2,500 listings, down from about 3,600 in the previous quarter, according to economist Kevin Gillen from Drexel University. This marked the first time home sales fell below 3,000; historically the City has an average of 7,400 houses for sale in a given month!
  • com also reported that nationally the median home prices rose close to 14% in February as compared to last February. In the Philly metropolitan area during this same time, median home prices jumped 12%. Gillen reported in the City average home prices rose 5% in the last quarter of 2020; and 13% in all of 2020. West and Southwest Philly saw the greatest jump at 22%.