• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 8.6% above year ago levels.
Active listings in the past week grew by 8.6% above the previous year, the 11th straight week of annual growth with no sign yet of a slowdown as growth in inventory increased from the previous week’s 7.9% rate. Should the uptick in new listings persist, the added inventory would greatly improve availability and affordability heading into the spring homebuying season but overall inventory is still 37.5% below similar weeks in 2017 to 2020.
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up this week, by 3.4% from one year ago.
Newly listed homes continue to rise above last year’s levels for the 13th week in a row. However, this past week the number of newly listed homes grew by only 3.4% over last year, a slowing down of the 7.0% growth rate seen in the previous week. During the winter season, there is a smaller pool of both home buyers and sellers active in the market, which could lead to more week-to-week fluctuations. Nonetheless, this past week’s new listing count still represents a decline of 25.9% compared to similar weeks in 2017 to 2020.
Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com.
Inventory was up year-over-year for the 11th consecutive week following 20 consecutive weeks with a YoY decrease in inventory.