The Latest Housing News From Realtor.com: A Sellers’ Market Continues

Here’s the latest housing market news from realtor.com.  Just as the last 10 months have been like the film Groundhog Day so were the fundamentals of the country’s real estate market in January.  Prices continued to rise while inventory constraints remained. Buyers flooded the market lured by historically low-interest rates. “It’s just much more of the same in most areas around the country,” observes Danielle Hale chief economist at realtor.com. “I think there was a slow start on new inventory in January because there is still uncertainty in the market for sellers. New listings actually trended better in December,” Hale adds.

“The market traditionally quiets down during the winter months, but we’re seeing a perfect storm of historically low-interest rates coupled with the desire for more space driving accelerated demand. Buyers are seizing the opportunity and pursuing their goals of homeownership,” explains Courtney Holman, an agent with Better Real Estate, a subsidiary of digital homeownership company Better.com. “These rates have created a “now or never” momentum ultimately placing a heavy demand in markets all over the U.S. for quality inventory. The current market requires extreme patience, but it is definitely worth it in the long run,” Holman added.

Realtor.com’s numbers tell the story. Inventory numbers are at the lowest since 2012 with less than 600,000 active listings. According to the report, the number of homes for sale fell 43% year-over-year. That means there were 443,000 fewer homes on the market in January 2020 than a year ago. The impact of significant inventory declines tracks to an increase of 15.4% in the median listing price since last January.  Despite that double-digit increase homes sold 10 days faster this year.

There were a few markets with exceptions to the fundamentals. There were only two metros in realtor.com’s top 50 metros experiencing year-over-year listing price declines. The Maimi-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro saw median listing prices declined by 3.2% to $400,000. Sellers were reluctant to put their homes on the market as the active listing count dropped almost 26%.

The Minneapolis metro (including St. Paul and Bloomington, Wisconsin) was hard hit with a listing count dip of 36%. Despite those inventory constraints prices experienced a slight decline to a median home listing price of $370,000. Many of realtor.com’s top 50 metros saw active year-over-year listings fall anywhere from 67% in Austin, Texas to 57% in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Two California metros saw inventory increases. The hyper-expensive metros of San Jose and San Francisco saw year-over-year inventory increases. Look at San Jose where sellers showed up increasing year-over-year new listings by 24.8%. Sellers in San Jose no doubt want to take advantage of rising home prices there where the median listing price reached $1,1,199,000.  Heading north to San Francisco we see that prices increased to $990,000 while new listings rose 14.4%. “It’s a good thing for homebuyers in those areas to see sellers coming back to the market,” notes Hale.

Hale remains optimistic on several fronts as 2021 unfolds. “We will see more inventory as we make progress with the vaccine. Also, new construction numbers are up which will help out later in the year.” That’s certainly good news for buyers.

Source