Weekly Housing Trends - Key Findings from Realtor.com
Median listing prices grew at 13.5 percent over last year, marking the 17th consecutive week of double-digit price growth. Rising home prices can sometimes sap the energy from buyer demand as affordability becomes a challenge, but with mortgage rates still nearly a whole percentage point below year-ago levels, the market has not yet had to grapple with this challenge.
New listings were down seven percent. This week’s data is a disappointing follow-up to last week’s first nationwide increase since early March. The new listings trend is noisier than active inventory since it’s a smaller set of data, so ups and downs are expected. Taken as an average over the last few weeks, new listings continue to improve gradually nationwide and some regions are faring even better. New listings increased in November in the Northeast and West regions. New listings are not only a signal of seller confidence, with a limited number of homes for sale, new listings are vital for future home sales growth.
For a fifth week, total active inventory was down 39 percent. Steady declines in active inventory are an indicator of a market that is still tipped toward sellers, and likely to mean continued home price growth and fast sales ahead.
Time on market was 14 days faster than last year. As discussed in the last few weeks, time on market is an indicator that has a strong seasonal slowdown as we approach the end of the year as both buyers and sellers tend to focus on the holidays as opposed to home buying or selling. Even though time on market suggests that homes are selling nearly two weeks faster than they were this time last year, we are seeing homes sit for sale longer this week compared with last week.
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