I’m gathering existing home data for many local markets, and I’m watching inventory very closely this year.
As I noted in Some thoughts on Housing Inventory
The key for housing in 2021 will be inventory. If inventory stays extremely low, there will be more housing starts and a larger increase in house prices. However, if inventory increases significantly, there will be fewer starts and less price appreciation.
The table below shows some data for May.
Although inventory in these areas is down about 54% year-over-year, inventory is mostly unchanged month-to-month. Seasonally we’d usually expect an increase in inventory from April to May.
It does appear inventory bottomed seasonally in March.
Note: California reported a 6.6% increase in active inventory from April to May, but they don’t report the actual numbers – so California isn’t include in the table below.
| Existing Home Inventory | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May-21 | Apr-21 | May-20 | YoY | MoM | |
| Alabama | 9,363 | 9,582 | 17,042 | -45.1% | -2.3% |
| Atlanta | 7,530 | 6,964 | 19,352 | -61.1% | 8.1% |
| Boston | 3,418 | 3,788 | 4,250 | -19.6% | -9.8% |
| Charlotte | 3104 | 3,018 | 8,177 | -62.0% | 2.8% |
| Colorado | 7,034 | 7,872 | 23,060 | -69.5% | -10.6% |
| Denver | 2,075 | 2,594 | 7,170 | -71.1% | -20.0% |
| Houston | 22,607 | 22,794 | 38,048 | -40.6% | -0.8% |
| Las Vegas | 2560 | 2,346 | 7,567 | -66.2% | 9.1% |
| Maryland | 7,490 | 7,167 | 17,254 | -56.6% | 4.5% |
| Minnesota | 8,953 | 9,020 | 18,074 | -50.5% | -0.7% |
| New Hampshire | 1,959 | 1,852 | 4,331 | -54.8% | 5.8% |
| North Texas | 8,126 | 8,084 | 21,610 | -62.4% | 0.5% |
| Northwest | 5,533 | 5,616 | 10,357 | -46.6% | -1.5% |
| Phoenix | 5218 | 4541 | 11,418 | -54.3% | 14.9% |
| Portland | 2,339 | 2,222 | 4,551 | -48.6% | 5.3% |
| Rhode Island | 1,143 | 1,520 | 3,036 | -62.4% | -24.8% |
| South Carolina | 11,278 | 11,237 | 24,878 | -54.7% | 0.4% |
| Total1 | 96,377 | 96,386 | 208,127 | -53.7% | 0.0% |
| 1excluding Denver (included in Colorado) | |||||