The increase follows a decline earlier in February that cut the number of homeowners in forbearance plans to less than 2.7 million, the first dip below that threshold since April 2020.

New home listings nationwide fell 17% from last year, while median home sale prices are up 15%, according to a recent Redfin report.  

The all-time high for January comes as limited supply cut pending transactions on a monthly basis, the association said.

The median sales price in the first month of 2021 was up 11.8% from January 2020 to $285,000, nearly matching the record high of $290,000 set last August.

The Cape Cod real estate market remained strong coming off a record-setting 2020 fueled by high demand and low inventory.

In Boston, 15.5% of last year’s Redfin searches were for homes priced higher than $1 million.

Additionally, the report found Massachusetts has the highest school system rating at 21.70% (18.1% times higher than Montana which had the lowest at 1.20%).

A new report from Redfin shows how inventory shortages are driving a chain reaction that includes accelerating home prices, unprecedented competition and surprisingly, the suppression of much-needed new listings.

A cold winter is no match for home sales as they continued to increase last month despite all-time high prices and record low inventory.

“In the final months of 2020, single-family rents posted the highest increases in over four years,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “However, single-family rent price reaction to the pandemic and resulting recession differed greatly across metros.”