U.S. homes sold in just 54 days on average in June and the median listing price hit $299,000, setting records as the nation's inventory of active home listings continued to decline year-over-year in June, according to the realtor.com® June 2018 monthly housing trend report.

Limited options, fast selling properties and escalating home prices have been a persistent challenge for would-be buyers and June data largely shows more of the same. The inventory of homes for sale in the U.S. grew 4% in June over May, representing a typical seasonal increase. On an annual basis, inventory decreased 4%, a slower rate than the 8% average decrease in the previous 12 months. Approximately 547,000 new listings appeared on realtor.com® in June, 2% higher than a year ago. This provided some relief to tight inventory conditions despite new listings dipping 2% lower than May 2018.

Listings on realtor.com® sold in just 54 days on average, six days less (10% faster) than last June and one day less than May. Of the top 100 markets, there are six in which listings spent 30 days or less on the market on average:

  1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.: 23 days on market
  2. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.: 24 days on market
  3. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif.: 25 days on market
  4. Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.: 26 days on market
  5. Salt Lake City, Utah: 26 days on market
  6. Colorado Springs, Colo.: 30 days on market
  7. "The pace of sales in the early days of summer continues to be as fierce and unforgiving as it's ever been, especially for entry-level buyers," said Javier Vivas, director of economic research for realtor.com®. "On the bright side, buyers saw more new listings hit the market than they saw last June, causing inventory to drop at a slower rate. However, much of the new inventory is composed of higher-priced, newer and larger homes, forcing a very hungry pool of buyers to adjust their budgets."

The median listing price of $299,000 is the highest recorded price point since realtor.com®'s inventory data series began in early 2012. Listing prices increased 9% year-over-year and show no signs of slowing down, increasing an average of 9% year-over-year for the last 12 months.