For clients looking to purchase a home, spring prices can be competitive. While property values steadied at the end of the year, they're up on an annual basis and expected to rise again as home buyers battle over a limited supply of housing stock.
Despite this, favorable conditions in certain local markets still offer clients better purchasing power odds. While in cities like Cleveland real house prices shot up 20% year-over-year in December, other areas only had growth around 5%, according to a First American Financial analysis of home values, factoring in local wages and mortgage rates in large cities.
From New York to Seattle, here's a look at 12 cities with the best purchasing power odds for the upcoming spring market.
The data, from the First American Real House Price Index, measures annual home price changes, taking local wages and mortgage rates into account "to better reflect consumers' purchasing power and capture the true cost of housing."
The December 2018 data is ranked by smallest year-over-year changes in RHPI for cities where the current value is less than 100 (an RHPI reading of 100 is equal to housing conditions in January 2000).
