Home sellers booked a profit of $61,000 on average from the sale of their homes in 2018, up from $50,000 in the prior year. The gain was $39,500 in 2016, the highest level since 2006.

The 2018 performance represented an average 32.6 percent return on investment compared to the original purchase price, up from 27.0 percent last year and up from 21.9 percent in 2016, according to the “Year-End 2018 U.S. Home Sales Report” from Attom Data Solutions.

"The economy is still going strong and home loan rates remain historically low. But there are potential clouds on the horizon,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer at Attom Data Solutions. “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."

Among 217 metropolitan statistical areas with a population greater than 200,000 and sufficient historical data, the highest returns on investment were almost exclusively in western states, with concentrations along areas of the west coast. Those with the highest average home seller returns were San Jose, Calif. (108.8 percent); San Francisco, (78.6 percent); Seattle (70.7 percent); Merced, Calif. (66.4 percent); and Santa Rosa, Calif. (66.1 percent).

San Jose and Las Vegas lead major metros in home price appreciation
The U.S. median home price in 2018 was $248,000, up 5.5 percent from 2017 to a new all-time high. Annual home price appreciation in 2018 slowed slightly compared to the 7.1 percent in 2017.

Along with San Jose and Las Vegas, other major metro areas with a population of at least 1 million with a double-digit percentage increase in home prices in 2018 were Grand Rapids, Mich. (10.6 percent); San Francisco (10.3 percent); Columbus, Ohio (10.1 percent); and Atlanta (10.1 percent). Fully 88 of the 127 metros (69 percent) reached new record home price peaks in 2018, including Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, and Boston.

St. Louis was the most affordable home buying city for millennials as of year-end 2018.

In St. Louis, more than 88 percent of homes for sale are affordable on a $68,805 annual salary, the median household income for a millennial in the area, according to a report from Redfin. The majority of the remaining most affordable places for millennial buyers ages 23-38 are inland, with three in the state of Ohio.

[caption id="attachment_9680" align="alignleft" width="300"] Daryl Fairweather[/caption]

Of the top-5 most affordable areas, Columbus, Ohio, was the only place where the share of homes within reach for millennials increased from 2018 to 2017. The rest saw their share of affordable homes decline.

"Millennials who dream of owning a home will have better luck if they move inland to places like St. Louis, Columbus and Pittsburgh. These cities used to have economies that relied heavily on manufacturing, and during the recession a lot of young people moved away in search of jobs. However, now these cities have more diverse economies based on education, healthcare and technology, and there are open jobs with salaries that are high relative to cost of living," said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist for Redfin.

Five Most Affordable Housing Markets for Millennials

"But millennials may want to move as quickly as possible because even in most inland cities the share of homes affordable to the typical millennial is shrinking as housing prices go up," said Fairweather.

By contrast, the 10 least affordable metro areas are all in coastal states like California, New York and Florida. In Los Angeles, which had the lowest share of affordable homes for millennials in 2018, just 18.5 percent were within reach. San Jose, San Diego and San Francisco are among the regions with the lowest percentage of affordable homes for millennials, all with less than 40 percent of homes affordable to young professionals.

And in all the areas except Miami, which has remained essentially flat, the percentage of affordable homes for sale dropped from 2017 to 2018.

Overall, 67.3 percent of homes across all the metro areas Redfin tracks were affordable for millennials in 2018, down from 71.2 percent in 2017.

By Dave Hershman

 There is no doubt that time is a business person’s most precious resource. In fact, time is everyone’s most precious resource.

[caption id="attachment_9654" align="alignleft" width="268"] Dave Hershman[/caption]

We never realize how precious time is until we run out of it.

George Burns lived a 100 years, yet he never had time for his final performance.

We all waste too much of this precious resource.

Many years ago, when we began teaching methods of improving time management skills, we introduced the concept of 1435 in order to prove a major point. What is 1435? It is the number of minutes left in the day after we waste five minutes. For the average person, we waste over one-third of our workday, either procrastinating or working on tasks that will not help us achieve our long-term objectives.

The key to getting more done? Developing a sense of urgency with regard to what needs to be accomplished. A simple exercise will demonstrate the different state of mind that we must achieve.

Imagine your last vacation. The serenity of knowing that you didn’t have to check messages or get up at a certain time. Perhaps you had no special agenda. After a few days of unwinding, work was the farthest from your mind—hopefully.

Now think of the day before you left on that vacation. Do you now have a different memory? Was that day a little more stressful? We would venture to say that the day before you left was your most effective time management day of the year. That day you accomplished more than any other. You quickly determined priorities and went about achieving those priorities.

If you failed, you would not get out of town on time. The day before vacation you had an urgency about what needed to get done. The key to better time management is to develop this sense of urgency every day of your life.

Perhaps we should take more vacations.

About the Author: Dave Hershman is a VP of Sales for Weichert Financial Services and founder or OriginationPro (www.OriginationPro.com), providing marketing content and training programs for the industry. Email him with questions or comments at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.