by Calculated Risk on 6/20/2022 09:42:00 AM

Altos reports inventory is up 18.5% year-over-year.

Inventory usually declines in the winter, and then increases in the spring. Inventory bottomed seasonally at the beginning of March 2022 and is now up 74% since then.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of June 17th, inventory was at 419 thousand (7-day average), compared to 396 thousand the prior week. Inventory was up 5.6% from the previous week.  Inventory is increasing much faster than normal for this time of year (both in percentage terms and in total inventory added).

Note: Next week, inventory will likely exceed the peak in 2021.

Inventory is still historically low. Compared to the same week in 2021, inventory is up 18.5% from 353 thousand, however compared to the same week in 2020 inventory is down 39.3% from 690 thousand.  Compared to 3 years ago, inventory is down 56.5% from 963 thousand.

Here are the inventory milestones I’m watching for with the Altos data:

1. The seasonal bottom (happened on March 4th for Altos) ✅

2. Inventory up year-over-year (happened on May 13th for Altos) ✅

3. Inventory up compared to two years ago (currently down 39.3% according to Altos)

4. Inventory up compared to 2019 (currently down 56.5%).

Here is a graph of the inventory change vs 2021, 2020 (milestone 3 above) and 2019 (milestone 4).

The blue line is the year-over-year data, the red line is compared to two years ago, and dashed purple is compared to 2019.

Two years ago (in 2020) inventory was declining all year, so the two-year comparison will get easier all year.  

My current guess is inventory will be up in Q4 compared to the same week in 2020.

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.