• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 13.9% above year ago levels.
For a 14th consecutive week, active listings registered above prior year level, which means that today’s home shoppers have more homes to choose from that aren’t already in the process of being sold. The added inventory has certainly improved conditions from this time one year ago, but overall inventory is still low. For the month as a whole, January inventory is down nearly 40% below 2017 to 2019 levels.
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up this week, by 9.5% from one year ago.
Newly listed homes were above last year’s levels for the 16th week in a row. While the jump was not as big as the one we observed in the previous week (12.8%), it was still an encouraging rate, which could further contribute to a recovery in active listings meaning more options for home shoppers
Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com.
Inventory was up year-over-year for the 14th consecutive week following 20 consecutive weeks with a YoY decrease in inventory.