CHARTS: House Listing Inventory Drought Is Sellers’ Delight
Published On: February 24, 2020 Posted by: Jeremy Peterson
Listing inventory of homes for sale has been a persistent problem for buyers over the past several years. While the pattern of available homes follows a predictable seasonal cycle that troughs in the winter and peaks in the summer, some years are better or worse than others.
Today we want to look at a chart that illustrates the severe drought we are facing in Weber County when it comes to homes on the market for sale. Let’s take a look.
This information comes from the MLS and represents a homes actively advertised for sale on the MLS each day for the past two years. The blue line represents February 22, 2019 through 2020 and the black line represents February 22, 2018 to 2019.
What you see here is that at the end of October of 2019, the number of homes actively listed for sale began to drop at a much faster pace than the previous year. This trend has continued for the past four months so that today, inventory is about 22% BELOW where it was a year ago at this time. This shortage in available house listing inventory means that buyers are in a real pinch to find a place to call home right now.
Interestingly, homes that have been placed under contract are following an interesting pattern right now.
Here you see that the number of homes being placed under contract are following a similar pattern since November. While there has been an increase in the number of homes under contract (around 5% more), the increase doesn’t explain the huge drop in homes available for sale in our first chart.
The Spring selling season kicks off in earnest toward the end of April. It will be interesting to watch and see how the rest of this year plays out with demand for housing being nearly insatiable while inventory remains anemic. The combination is bound to boost house prices further of nothings changes.
So, if you are wanting to sell your home, now is a fantastic time to maximize your value. CONTACT ME, and lets see what your home is worth today.
