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Home prices continue to soar as housing inventory dwindles, according to new data from the Sandy Springs-based Atlanta Realtors Association.

“Home ownership is at risk for a lot of our citizens,” Karen Hatcher, president of the association, said in a market brief released Tuesday. “And it’s not completely out of our hands. Real estate professionals, sellers, developers and local governments all have a role to play in fostering balance in the market.”

The average sales price in the 11-county metro Atlanta area was $445,000 in February 2022. That’s up 17.7% from a year ago and 1.8% higher than January 2022.  

The median sales price jumped to $380,000 in February 2022, up 21.4% in a year.

(Source: Atlanta Realtors Association)

Meanwhile, Atlanta-area housing inventory totaled 6,095 units in February 2022, down 15.2% from February 2021. There’s now less than a month (0.9) of supply in the metro area, according to the Atlanta Realtors Association.

“We’re heading toward two years of consistently recording decreases of 20% or more in our inventory levels for metro Atlanta,” Hatcher said. She added that prices have surged by double digits each year since August 2020.

And as COVID-19 restrictions continue to ease and the spring market heats up, “we’re unlikely to see the shift we’re looking for in these trends anytime soon,” she said.

(Source: Atlanta Realtors Association)

The Atlanta Business Chronicle released a housing analysis on Tuesday that illustrates just how unaffordable certain areas of metro Atlanta are becoming, estimating you would have to earn well over $100,000 annually to buy a house in Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody or Brookhaven. And in Atlanta’s most expensive ZIP code — 30327, which includes affluent areas of Buckhead and Sandy Springs — that yearly income would have to exceed $260,000 to afford a mortgage, according to the article.

Amy Wenk was editor of Reporter Newspapers in 2021-22.