• Active inventory declined, with for-sale homes lagging behind year ago levels by 5.2%..
This past week marked the 11th consecutive decline in the number of homes actively for sale compared to the prior year, however the gap narrowed slightly compared to the previous week’s -5.9% figure. With inventory continuing to remain constrained, the pending and existing home sales pace has consistently hovered around a low level in recent months as high mortgage rates and home prices drive sellers and buyers to put plans to move on-hold.
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were down again this week, by 8.5% from one year ago..
For the past 61 weeks, there have been fewer newly listed homes compared to the same time one year ago. In July and August, this gap shrank from more than 20% lower to around 8% lower. While the number of newly listed homes increased from July to August (which is not typical in this season), new home listings have once again begun to decline as is expected heading into September. This past week, newly listed homes were down 8.5% compared to a year ago and this gap may have re-stabilized at this level.
Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com.
Inventory was down 5.2% year-over-year – this was the eleventh consecutive week with a YoY decrease following 58 consecutive weeks with a YoY increase in inventory.