by Calculated Risk on 8/09/2021 11:09:00 AM

Tracking existing home inventory will be very important this year.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of August 6th, inventory was at 412 thousand (7 day average), compared to 613 thousand for the same week a year ago.  That is a decline of 32.8%.

A week ago, inventory was at 407 thousand, and was down 35.0% YoY.  

Seasonally, inventory has bottomed.   Inventory was about 34.3% above the record low in early April.

Key question: Usually inventory peaks in the Summer, and then declines into the Fall.  Will inventory follow the normal seasonal pattern, or will inventory continue to increase over the coming months?  This will be important to watch for house prices and housing activity.  

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.  

Altos Research has also seen a significant pickup in price decreases - back to the level of a year ago - but still well below a normal rate for August.