Lehigh Valley home prices rise as sales fall

HANOVER TWP., NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, Pa. - The housing market in the Lehigh Valley has started to cool, but prices are still climbing in the face of low supply.

• Median home sale price went up 13.4% to $295,250
• Completed sales went down 15.9% to 722
• New Listings dropped 21% to 696
• Months of inventory available slid 7.7% to 1.2 months
• Homes sold in 17 days on average, up from 16 

According to new data released Wednesday by Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors, completed sales are down about 15% relative to September 2021, with new listings and pending sales also down. Despite signs of easing demand, persistently low inventory pushed the median selling price of a home up roughly 13% to $295,250.

On average, homes are still selling for more than their asking price, though by a slightly smaller margin than last September.

“We're seeing the challenges of inventory as the dominant theme of our data,” Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors CEO Justin Porembo said. “Month after month, we've been down in adequate inventory for individuals that are out looking for homes.”

When this scarcity collides with demand that’s still much higher than before the pandemic, prices rise, according to Porembo.

“Even though demand may have cooled off a little bit, it's still up,” Porembo said. One clear sign of this, he said, is the average length of time homes spent on the market – 17 days.

“If you look a few years ago where we were averaging, you know, months on market,” he said, “17 days is pretty indicative that there's still demand out there and people are moving quickly.”

The data paints a picture of a housing market in flux, as rising interest rates start to weigh the market down, slowing it from its peak earlier in the pandemic.

“We're all waiting to see how things such as interest rates, how all of these external factors will weigh in on the overall health of the market,” Porembo said. But, he added, as rising prices show, “people are still willing to jump in.”