Housing Market Update - Trends Posted by Realtor.com
Realtor.com research team releases regular monthly housing trends reports. These reports break down inventory metrics like the number of active listings and the pace of the market. In light of the developing COVID-19 situation affecting the industry, they want to give readers more timely weekly updates. You can look forward to a Weekly Housing Trends View near the end of each week along with weekly coverage from their Housing Market Recovery Index and a weekly video update from their economists. Here’s what the housing market looked like last week.
Housing market economics remain tipped in favor of sellers as would-be spring buyers are shopping well into what would normally be summer vacation season. Home buyers, trying to take advantage of record-low mortgage rates and make up for lost time, are finding limited and more expensive options. Sellers are slowly acclimating to this unexpected trend, but homes for sale still lag buyer demand which is leading to time on market nearly on pace with last year and asking price growth on par with this time last summer.
Weekly Housing Trends Key Findings
New listings were down 19 percent. The new listings trend appeared to worsen for the week ending July 11, showing a larger decline than we saw the previous week (week ending July 4). This can be partly attributed to the timing of the 4th of July holiday this year.
Looking at the last three weeks combined (holiday week plus the week before and the week after), new listings are down an average of 14 percent from a year ago. While new listings have not recovered to their pre-COVID trend, they are moving in the right direction, despite occasional setbacks.
Total inventory was down 32 percent. The improving new listings trend is still not enough to offset buyer demand as more home buyers aim to take advantage of record-low mortgage rates.
Median listing prices continue growing at 7.9 percent over last year, faster than the pre-COVID pace and on par with this time last year.
Time on market is now just 1 day slower than last year as buyers out-number sellers and confidence is growing for both.
Check out their video as well for additional economic updates:
