by Calculated Risk on 4/18/2024 02:01:00 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 March, 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 29.1% 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 April 13, 2024

• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 29.1% above year-ago levels.

For the 23rd week in a row, there were more homes listed for sale compared with the previous year, giving homebuyers a wider selection to choose from. However, this week’s increase was not as high as the 30.4% growth seen last week, possibly suggesting a slowdown in inventory growth. This could be due to the continued impact of high mortgage rates, which might be discouraging some sellers from listing their homes.

• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up this week, by 7.2% from one year ago.

Following some ups and downs around Easter, sellers kept putting homes on the market at a faster rate compared with last year, with a 7.2% increase in newly listed homes. However, this growth rate is slower than what we’ve seen since early February.

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

Inventory was up year-over-year for the 23rd 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 increasing.