by Calculated Risk on 5/12/2022 10:32:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Realtor.com Reports Weekly Inventory Up Slightly Year-over-year

Excerpt:

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report released this morning from Chief Economist Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending May 7, 2022. Note: They have data on list prices, new listings and more, but this focus is on inventory.

• Active inventory grew for the first time since 2019. While the size of the improvement rounded to 0%, this week’s data [marks] the first time that inventory figures weren’t lower than the previous year since June 2019. Our April Housing Trends Report showed that the active listings count remained 60 percent below its level right at the onset of the pandemic. This means that for every 5 homes available for sale in the earlier period, today there are just 2. In other words, homes for sale are still limited. However, the switch to growth after nearly 3 years of decline is a step in the right direction, even though inventory continues to lag pre-pandemic normal. 

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. Note: I corrected a sign error in the data for Feb 26, 2022.

Note the rapid increase in the YoY change, from down 30% at the beginning of the year, to unchanged YoY now. It will be important to watch if that trend continues.

The previous week, inventory was down 3.4% YoY according to Realtor.com. That is close to the 1.6% decline that Altos reported for the similar period. I expect Altos to report a year-over-year increase in inventory on Monday.

There is much more in the article. You can subscribe at https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/