Atlanta metro area real estate market declining, experts say – WSB-TV Channel 2

ATLANTA — After several record months of soaring prices, the housing market in metro Atlanta is finally starting to cool off.

The median sales price in the city for July was $422,500, up almost 16% from the same time last year but 2% lower than last month.

Reasons for this change include rising mortgage rates, and inflation, according to data from First Multiple Listing Service.

The service says the housing market tends to decline in summer as people go on vacation.

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Multiple factors — both existential and experiential — affected the July market, said Rob Smith, a broker with Keller Williams.

In mid-July, the U.S. Federal Reserve signaled it would raise its benchmark interest rate by 0.75% for the second month in a row.

“For about three weeks in a row, [buyers] woke up to a 5-gallon bucket of ice water thrown in their face,” Smith said.

Those factors, combined with the fact that many would-be buyers have been priced out by high prices and rising mortgage rates, resulted in a 31% annual decline in home sales last month.

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Metro Atlanta’s housing inventory rose to its highest level since September 2020 and was up 34% year over year. July was the fourth consecutive month in which inventory increased on an annual basis, breaking a nearly three-year streak of declines.

The metro area had a nearly two-year supply of homes for sale in July, still far below the four to six months supply that real estate professionals consider to be a typical sellers’ market.

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