by Calculated Risk on 9/30/2010 06:00:00 PM

Tom Lawler reports that at the end of September, listings on Realtor.com totaled 3,960,417, down 1.2% from 4,007,860 at the end of August. This is 1.7% higher than in September 2009.

The NAR reported inventory at 3.98 million at the end of August, and at 3.71 million in September 2009. So they will probably report inventory at around 3.85 million for September 2010. (NAR does not seasonally adjust inventory and this appears to be a normal seasonal decline. The months-of-supply metric uses seasonally adjusted sales, but NSA inventory.).

Since sales probably only increased slightly in September, the months-of-supply metric will probably still be well into double digits again.

Note: there is a seasonal pattern for existing home inventory. Usually inventory peaks in July and declines slightly through October - and then declines sharply at the end of the year as sellers take their homes off the market for the holidays.