by Calculated Risk on 7/20/2023 06:53:00 PM

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report from Sabrina Speianu and Danielle Hale: Weekly Housing Trends View — Data Week Ending July 15, 2023

• Active inventory declined, with for-sale homes lagging behind year ago levels by 6%. Following a year of declining newly listed homes, the stock of active inventory began to decline in June and this past week continued a four week trend with an annual decline of 6%. As interest rates remain elevated, hampering selling activity, we expect the stock of homes for sale to continue to remain low, declining by 5% overall for the year. .

• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were down again this week, by 19% from one year ago. The number of newly listed homes has been lower than the same time the previous year for the past 54 weeks. This past week, newly listed homes were down 19% compared to the same time last year. However, this past week’s data showed a more narrow gap than the previous week, as 102,000 newly listed homes were added to the nation’s housing inventory, the highest level in five weeks. Seller sentiment, as measured by Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index, was net positive in June, however higher interest rates continue to ‘lock-in’ otherwise would-be home sellers and in response selling sentiment declined from the month before.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. 

Inventory was down 5.0% year-over-year - this was the fourth consecutive YoY decrease following 58 consecutive weeks with a YoY increase in inventory.  

Inventory is still up from the record lows in the 2nd half of 2021 and early 2022, and it is unlikely we will see new record lows by this measure this year.