You might have laughed skeptically when experts predicted that St. Louis would be one of the nation's hottest real estate markets in 2016, but now the joke's on you: Smarter people did their laughing all the way to the bank.The area's median home price rose four percent in 2016, from $160,000 to $167,000 — even as the total number of sales was up eight percent. The number of days on the market in greater St. Louis dropped from 103 to just 86.…