With the boom in home prices in the recovery, homeowners have been profiting in the tens of thousands when they unload—and in 2018, the payout was at a peak.
In the past year, the average homeowner pocketed $61,000 at resale—$11,000 more than what the average homeowner profited in 2017, and $21,500 more than the average realized in 2016, according to ATTOM Data Solutions findings.
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The gains—an average 32.6 percent return—haven’t been this high since 2006, before the downturn.
The highest profits were in the West, where home prices have risen substantially. The biggest winners? San Jose, where the average ROI was 108.8 percent; San Francisco, where the average ROI was 78.6 percent; and Seattle, where the average ROI was 70.7 percent.
In the fourth quarter of the year, the average seller tenure was 8.3 years, an increase from prior years.
“While 2018 was the most profitable time to sell a home in more than 12 years, those along the coasts reaped the most gains,” explains Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM Data Solutions. “However, those are the same areas where homeowners are staying put longer. The economy is still going strong and home loan rates remain historically low.”
For the year, appreciation was highest in Mobile, Ala. (+21 percent), Flint, Mich. (+19 percent), San Jose (+18.9 percent), Atlantic City, N.J. (+16.4 percent) and Las Vegas (+13.5 percent). The average for the country overall was 5.5 percent.
“There are potential clouds on the horizon,” Teta warns. “The effects of last year’s tax cuts are wearing off as limits on homeowner tax deductions are in place and mortgage rates are ticking up ever so slowly, so this could dampen the potential for home price gains in 2019.”
