by Calculated Risk on 4/04/2024 02:44:00 PM

What this means: On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For February, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 23.5% YoY, but still down almost 38% compared to March 2017 to 2019 levels. 

 Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 25.0% YoY.

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report: Weekly Housing Trends View—Data Week Ending March 30, 2024

• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 25.0% above year ago levels.

For an 21st straight week, active listings registered above prior year level, which means that today’s home shoppers are able to consider more options for existing homes for sale. However, the number of homes on the market is still down 37.9% compared to what was typical in 2017 to 2019.

• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–fell this week due to the Easter holiday, by 7.8% from one year ago.

After 22 consecutive weeks of growing new listings, newly listed homes fell below the previous year’s level. However, this decline is in part due to how the Easter holiday fell this year compared to last year. Even without the impact of the Holiday, the annual growth rate of new listings took a step back compared to the last couple of months. Taking a broader look, the number of new homes for sale remains historically small, even with recent improvements.

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

Inventory was up year-over-year for the 21st consecutive week following 20 consecutive weeks with a YoY decrease in inventory.  

Inventory is still historically very low.

New listings remain below typical pre-pandemic levels although generally increasing. The YoY decline this week was probably related to the Easter holiday.  New listings had been up YoY for 22 consecutive weeks.