Home prices in New Jersey rose for the first time in four years at the end of the first quarter, according to an East Brunswick-based appraiser. The increase reflects sales that were buoyed by record-low mortgage rates and the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit, said Jeffrey Otteau of the Otteau Valuation Group. Statewide, the median price was $273.060, or 1.4 percent higher than the same period last year. “It’s just confirmation of the rebound that’s been going on since last summer,” he said. Hudson County got the biggest boost, where the median price rose to $349,010, a 14.6 percent jump over the first quarter of 2009.
Across the country, home prices rose in 91 cities in the first quarter as states hard hit by foreclosures began to recover and a tax credit cut the number of properties for sale, the National Association of Realtors said in a report yesterday.
The median price of a single-family home in the New York metropolitan area rose 1.8 percent, to $380,400, in the three months ended March 31.
The areas surrounding New Haven and Milford, Conn., gained 5.3 percent, to $227,900.
The Edison region had a 1.5 percent gain in the median price; and Hartford, Conn., posted a 1.6 percent increase, to $225,900. Prices in the Boston metropolitan area increased 11 percent to $321,800. The median price of a single-family home sold in Saginaw, Mich., doubled to $60,800, the realty group said. Prices in Akron, Ohio, climbed 90 percent, to $95,300 and Grand Rapids, Mich., recorded a 26 percent increase, to $90,700. Nationally, the median declined 0.7 percent.
Cities that led the nation in foreclosures a year earlier had the biggest price increases as a tax credit of as much as $8,000 boosted demand and drove the supply of unsold homes to a four-year low in January, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.
Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist for IHS Global Insight, said an improving job market should sustain the fledgling rebound in real estate.
“In the second half of the year, employment growth and an improving economic situation should keep the housing recovery on track,” Bethune said.
Yesterday’s report showed the recovery accelerating from the fourth quarter, when 67 metropolitan areas reported price gains. Bloomberg.