by Calculated Risk on 11/15/2021 10:38:00 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 November 12th, inventory was at 394 thousand (7 day average), compared to 525 thousand for the same week a year ago.  That is a decline of 25.0%.

Compared to the same week in 2019, inventory is down 55.9% from 892 thousand.  A week ago, inventory was at 401 thousand, and was down 24.3% YoY.   

Seasonally, inventory bottomed in April (usually inventory bottoms in January or February). Inventory was about 28% above the record low in early April.

Inventory peaked for the year in early September.   Ten weeks ago inventory was at 437 thousand (the peak for the year), so inventory is currently off about 10.0% from the peak for the year.  

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.  

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