by Calculated Risk on 12/20/2021 10:07:00 AM

Tracking existing home inventory is very important this year and in 2022.

Inventory usually declines sharply over the holidays - so we will likely see new record lows in the next few weeks.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of December 17th, inventory was at 326 thousand (7-day average), compared to 454 thousand for the same week a year ago.  That is a decline of 28.2%.  Inventory is down 3.9% from last week.

Compared to the same week in 2019, inventory is down 59.5% from 804 thousand.  A week ago, inventory was at 339 thousand, and was down 27.7% YoY.   

Seasonally, inventory bottomed in April (usually inventory bottoms in January or February). Inventory last week was about 6.3% above the record low set-in early April.

Inventory peaked for the year in early September, when inventory was at 437 thousand (the peak for the year), so inventory is currently off about 25.5% from the peak for the year.  

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.