by Calculated Risk on 12/26/2022 10:50:00 AM

Active inventory decreased last week.  Here are the same week inventory changes for the last four years (usually inventory declines seasonally through the Winter - until early March):

2022: -14.0K 

2021: -15.5K

2020: -16.9K

2019: -20.7K

Altos reports inventory is down 2.7% week-over-week and down 12.0% from the peak on October 28, 2022.

Click on graph for larger image.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of December 23rd, inventory was at 508 thousand (7-day average), compared to 522 thousand the prior week. 

Compared to the same week in 2021, inventory is up 63.7% from 310 thousand, and compared to the same week in 2020 inventory is up 16.2% from 437 thousand.  However, compared to 3 years ago (2019), inventory is down 35.1% from 783 thousand.

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

1. The seasonal bottom (happened on March 4, 2022, for Altos) ✅

2. Inventory up year-over-year (happened on May 20, 2022, for Altos) ✅

3. Inventory up compared to 2020 (happened on October 7, 2022, for Altos) ✅

4. Inventory up compared to 2019 (currently down 35.1%).

Here is a graph of the inventory change vs 2021 (milestone 2 above), 2020 (milestone 3) 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.

A key will be if inventory declines slower than usual during the winter months - or starts increasing earlier than usual (bottom is usually in early March of each year).

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.