Birmingham Median Home Prices: Feb ’21 vs Feb ’22

A Look At February Year Over Year Median Sales Price In Birmingham

So how’s the Birmingham real estate market looking? This is a question I get asked frequently since I am a real estate appraiser.

Birmingham Median Home Prices

There are a lot of different ways to look at the real estate market. Today I thought I would focus on the year-over-year comparison of Birmingham median home prices from February 2021 to February 2022, so let’s get started.

In the table below you will see the different Birmingham neighborhoods/markets and how the median price compares from February 2021 to February 2022. You can click on each image to expand it.

Birmingham Home Sales Feb 21 vs Feb 22 aBirmingham Home Sales Feb 21 vs Feb 22 bBirmingham Home Sales Feb 21 vs Feb 22 cBirmingham Home Sales Feb 21 vs Feb 22 dBirmingham Median Price by County Feb 21 vs Feb 22

 

A Closer Look

Out of the 28 areas of the Birmingham real estate market included in the chart, only 5 experienced a decrease in median sales price. While there may be various reasons for this I did notice that in some of these areas there were not very many sales, and the homes that did sell represented smaller homes or those in the lower price ranges.

In areas where larger increases were noted there were a larger number of homes sold. This lends support to the old recommendation of a sample size of at least 30 to get reliable results.

The majority of neighborhoods within the Birmingham area experienced increases in median sales prices from 3% to 52%. Like the neighborhoods with negative trends, some of these increases could reflect a small sample size with the majority of homes being sold in the upper tier of prices.

What Is Driving Prices?

It appears that a lower inventory of homes is continuing to drive median prices upward. This has been the story since the beginning of the pandemic. The charts below illustrate the declining inventory of new listings and the total number of listings compared to the past 2 years. The bottom two charts are courtesy of Redfin.com.

Birmingham Active Listings Feb 21 to Feb 22Birmingham, AL new listingsBirmingham, AL Active Listings

The record-breaking low-interest rates that occurred shortly after the COVID lockdown was announced pulled more fence-sitters into the house buying market. Dreams of low-interest rates and lower mortgage payments created an imbalance between supply and demand that we are still seeing today.

We have been told that we would see multiple interest rate hikes in 2022, however, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia made us question whether this would actually happen. Despite the events overseas The Federal Reserve did increase interest rates for the first time in three years.

This could have a cooling effect on the real estate market, especially if they follow through with the other planned increases throughout the year.

Initially, I believe that home buying activity will continue as people try to purchase before rates get too high, however, as the rates continue to increase this may take some participants out of the market and we may see a cooling off of the market.

Birmingham Gets a New Reality Show

In case you haven’t heard Birmingham is the setting for a new fix and flip reality show on the A & E Network called “Flipping Down South”. It focuses on the Apollo Property Group’s efforts to renovate and flip homes in the Birmingham area.

FLIPPING DOWN SOUTH

The focus so far has been the Eastlake area of town. I wrote about Eastlake almost three years ago and shared how this area of town is being transformed into a hotspot for investors and buyers who want to be closer to the downtown area.

Since that post, the area has seen even more revitalization. More dilapidated houses have been transformed into beautiful homes for new families.

A problem you can run into when transforming an area like this is gentrification. Increasing home prices and rents can price the original residents out of the market and create animosity between them and the investors and new homeowners.

According to Cody Cummings, one of the main stars of the show, a mission of theirs is to improve the neighborhoods they work in without displacing the people. This will go a long way in the long-term success of the revitalization of the Eastlake area as well as any other areas where this type of activity is occurring.

You can read more about Eastlake from my previous post from three years ago but here are some updated stats on what has happened to the housing market since then.

Eastlake Median Sales Price TrendsEastlake Sales Price Trends

 

Questions?
Do you have any questions about Birmingham median home prices or want to know how a pre-listing appraisal can benefit you when selling a home? Leave a comment below or call me and we can discuss, as always thanks for reading.

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Comments

  1. Love seeing the visuals, Tom. It’s interesting to break it out by MLS area too. Lots of stats there. Way to go!!

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