The lack of inventory keeps lifting home values higher.
Home values rose 5% from a year earlier to a median of $187,000 in April, Zillow said Tuesday. That's well above the 2% increase in home values the Seattle data company had predicted.
Meanwhile, the inventory of homes for sale dropped 3.4% from a year earlier.
"The struggle will continue for home shoppers this summer," Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell said in a news release. "New construction has been sluggish over the past year; we're building about half as many homes as we should be in a normal market. There still aren't enough homes on the market to keep up with the high demand from every type of homebuyer."
But the going might get easier for those in the market for a high-end home. Sixteen percent of properties in the top third of the market experienced price cuts over the past year, versus 11% for bottom-tier homes and 13% in the middle third.
Contributing to the price decrease in the top tier is high-end construction, which is slowing the shrinkage in inventory of condos and luxury homes, and could eventually get it growing again.
