Cold Weather Hot Prices

Hard to believe with the arctic temps, but the spring real estate market is just around the corner.

And if the latest price and sales numbers are any indicator, this spring is likely to see another big jump in prices, driven in large part by the long-standing shortage of listings.

Just take a look at what happened in December, usually the dead zone of the annual real estate cycle.

Instead, home prices in the Boston area jumped 3.6 percent in December from November to a median price of more than $372,000. That’s also a more than 8 percent rise as well from December, 2012, Redfin reports.

But here’s the key stat: The inventory of unsold homes dropped nearly 20 percent from November to December, a very big one-month plunge, according to Redfin.

Overall, the number of home for sale in December was down more than 30 percent compared to December 2012.