Less than a day after realtor Andrea White listed a three-bedroom home for sale in Sacramento, California, in March, she received a cash offer. The buyer – who hadn’t even seen the house in person – was ready to pay $ 520,000, Ms. White said. This was $ 21,000 more than the asking price and 37% more than the seller had paid for the farmhouse just two years ago.
Accepting the offer was the easy part. Ms. White then had to call another 17 agents who had scheduled house tours to let them know she was out of the market.
Mrs. White, who works for brokerage Redfin Corp. and has been an agent since 2014, he has never seen anything like the sales craze that engulfs his northern California city. “It’s tiring,” she said. “I was speechless. It’s heartbreaking for buyers; it’s a holiday for sellers.”
Last year was the hottest for sales in 14 years. Home values are rising in virtually every corner of the United States, and average selling prices in dozens of metropolitan areas have risen in double-digit percentages from a year ago, according to Zillow Group Inc. In Boise, Idaho, the average selling price rose nearly 25 percent in January from a year earlier, while in Stamford, Conn., It rose 19 percent.
“Prices are rising pretty much everywhere,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.