The Most Important Number of the Week Is $329,100
The median price of an existing home in the U.S. rose to a record in March, but don’t call the housing market a bubble.
Homebuilders can’t keep up with demand.
Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg
The National Association of Realtors came out Thursday with its monthly update on housing, and the results were stunning. The median price of an existing home in the U.S. rose to a record $329,100 in March, an increase of 5.92% from February and 17.2% from a year earlier.
The unlikely strength of the housing market during a pandemic has been no secret. And yet the report provoked responses along the lines of “unsustainable” and “bubble” because there seems to be no slowing down. A bubble, however, is driven by a surge in asset prices that is fueled by irrational behavior and disconnected from fundamentals. By that measure, what is happening in housing today is the opposite of a bubble and should help drive the economy for many quarters, if not years.