by Calculated Risk on 1/17/2022 10:01:00 AM

Tracking existing home inventory is very important in 2022.

Inventory usually declines sharply over the holidays and into January, and this is a new record low for this series.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of January 14th, inventory was at 284 thousand (7-day average), compared to 389 thousand for the same week a year ago.  That is a decline of 28.6%.  Inventory was down 2.9% from the previous week.

 A week ago, inventory was at 292 thousand, and was down 26.0% YoY.   

Compared to the same week in 2019, inventory is down 61.6% from 740 thousand.

Last year, seasonally, inventory bottomed in April 2021 - very late - usually inventory bottoms in January or February. The key will be to watch if inventory bottoms in January or February this year.

Inventory peaked last year in early September, when inventory was at 437 thousand, so inventory is currently off about 35.1% from the peak for 2021.  

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.