by Calculated Risk on 8/19/2021 06:11:00 PM

I'm gathering existing home data for many local markets, and I'm watching inventory very closely this year.

The table below shows some local market data for July.

As I noted in Some thoughts on Housing Inventory

The key for housing in 2021 will be inventory. If inventory stays extremely low, there will be more housing starts and a larger increase in house prices. However, if inventory increases significantly, there will be fewer starts and less price appreciation.

Although inventory in these areas is down about 33% year-over-year, inventory is up 13.5% month-to-month (and up 26.5% over the last two months).  Seasonally we'd usually expect a small increase in inventory from June to July - so some of this increase is seasonal (as opposed to a shift in the market).   

It does appear inventory bottomed seasonally in March.  And inventory is still historically very low, but increasing more than just seasonal.

 

Existing Home Inventory
	Jul-21	Jun-21	Jul-20	YoY	MoM
Albuquerque	1,062	1,112	1,772	-40.1%	-4.5%
Atlanta	8,668	7,787	15,442	-43.9%	11.3%
Austin	3,294	2,265	5,309	-38.0%	45.4%
Boston	3,719	3,822	4,853	-23.4%	-2.7%
Charlotte	4,073	3,462	7,045	-42.2%	17.6%
Colorado	11,126	10,405	21,959	-49.3%	6.9%
Denver	4,056	3,122	6,449	-37.1%	29.9%
Des Moines	2,086	1,838	2,785	-25.1%	13.5%
Houston	27,268	24,225	34,364	-20.6%	12.6%
Jacksonville	4,668	4,586	7,852	-40.6%	1.8%
Las Vegas	3,669	3,029	6,387	-42.6%	21.1%
Maryland	10,164	8,550	14,685	-30.8%	18.9%
Memphis	2,514	2,242	2,938	-14.4%	12.1%
Minnesota	11,854	10,919	16,861	-29.7%	8.6%
Nashville	4,105	3,377	7,199	-43.0%	21.6%
New Hampshire	2,103	2,305	3,521	-40.3%	-8.8%
North Texas	12,363	9,747	18,470	-33.1%	26.8%
Northwest	7,948	6,358	10,259	-22.5%	25.0%
Phoenix	6,746	5,866	8,010	-15.8%	15.0%
Portland	3,180	2,722	4,133	-23.1%	16.8%
Rhode Island	2,110	1,985	2,775	-24.0%	6.3%
Sacramento	1,602	1,297	1,266	26.5%	23.5%
San Diego	3,349	3,369	5,763	-41.9%	-0.6%
Santa Clara	1,820	1,767	1,950	-6.7%	3.0%
South Carolina	12,869	11,163	21,592	-40.4%	15.3%
Total1	152,360	134,198	227,190	-32.9%	13.5%
1excluding Denver (included in Colorado)