Top Housing Markets of 2015

The 2015 housing market was one of the strongest since before the recession, and 2016 looks to do even better. An ongoing problem, especially within the more urban markets, is a historically low inventory of available homes for sale. This has been a problem for several years now, as construction has failed to match demand.
Top housing markets of 2015 house sales

That lack of inventory really shows up in the yearly % change chart. Few urban markets have increased year over year, as they have a much more limited supply of housing, even as demand for urban housing has increased.

Let’s see how this impacted prices.

While urban markets were not necessarily the most expensive compared to suburban, more of them were generally towards the top half of price increases last year.



Summer of Rain 2015

Summer of rain

This summer has been wet… very wet. Rain has fallen on far more days than not, and cloud cover has hung thick and heavy in what are historically much sunnier months. To top it all off, temperatures have been somewhat below normal.

How wet has the Summer of Rain 2015 been up through today? Meteorological summer runs June 1st-August 31st, and today makes the midpoint of that period, so I thought it would be a good time to check in and answer that question.

Here are the top 10 wettest summers through yesterday.
1. 1958: 12.54″
2. 2008: 11.68″
3. 1990: 10.93″
4. 2015: 10.66″
5. 1949: 10.40″
6. 1973: 10.23″
7. 1917: 10.06″
8. 1928: 10.02″
9. 1937: 9.75″
10. 1969: 9.38″

So 2015 is running the 4th wettest. It looks to be dry the next few days before more thunderstorms and rain return, so 2015′s position may end up rising.

What are the wettest full summers of all time? A few of the above years went on to be in the top 10, but not all.
1. 1958: 22.02″
2. 1979: 20.92″
3. 1995: 19.85″
4. 2003: 19.39″
5. 1969: 19.09″
6. 1915: 18.92″
7. 1992: 18.44″
8. 1973: 17.81″
9. 1989: 17.45″
10. 1949: 16.54″

Summer 2015 needs about 6″ more to reach into the top 10 wettest summers, which at the current pace is more than possible.