by Calculated Risk on 8/13/2013 12:32:00 PM

From Nick Timiraos at the WSJ: Housing Inventory Rose in July

The number of homes being offered for sale is rising heading into the softer part of the summer, a sign that higher home prices could be encouraging more sellers to test the market, according to a report released Tuesday.

Nationally, the number of homes for sale stood 5.2% below the levels of a year earlier. But inventories rose by 1.4% from June, an indication that the inventory crunch could finally be easing, data from Realtor.com showed.
emphasis added

Note: Here is the realtor.com site (not updated with July data yet at posting time). The year-over-year decline is getting smaller each month. As an example, Realtor.com reported that the year-over-year decline was 16% in February, and declined to 7.3% in June - and is now at 5.2%.

Last month, the NAR reported inventory was down 7.6% from June 2012. That was the smallest year-over-year (YoY) decrease since 2011, and it appears the YoY change will turn positive soon.  My guess is the YoY change for inventory will probably turn positive in September and that inventory bottomed in early 2013.