Area home sales climbed and prices hit another record high last month as Colorado Springs' hot housing market lived up to its recent ranking as the nation's seventh-best. 

 - Homes were gobbled up quickly in March, selling in an average of 36 days. In the same month last year, homes spent an average of 47 days on the market before selling.

- Through the first quarter of this year, home sales totaled 2,955 - a 2.2 percent increase over the same period in 2016, which was a record-setting year for sales.

- The median price - or mid-point - for homes sold in March was $268,000, beating the previous record of $265,000 set in August 2016 and matched in January of this year, according to the Realtors Association. March's median price also was up almost 12 percent from the same month last year. Median prices now have risen for 28 straight months on a year-over-year basis.

- The average sales price in March was $295,828, a 10.4 percent increase over last year, although short of February's record of $301,385. When looking at median and average prices, economists and real estate experts tend to focus more on the median because averages can be skewed by a few very high or very low sale prices.

- The supply of homes remained very tight. There were 1,454 homes listed for sale in March, down one-quarter from the same month last year.

The Realtors Association report is based on home sales whose transactions were handled by its members; about 90 percent of those sales took place in El Paso County, with the rest recorded in other Front Range counties.

The association's report follows one last month by Realtor.com, which said the Springs' housing market ranked No. 7 in March among the country's top markets.

The Realtor.com report was based on an analysis of the demand for homes as measured by views of online listings. The report also looked at the supply of homes in a given area, which was measured by the median number of days that homes spend on the market before they were sold.