You may have heard inventory is low right now, but you may not fully realize just how low or why. This graph from Calculated Risk can help put that into perspective:
As the graph shows, while housing inventory did grow slightly week-over-week (shown in the blue bar), overall supply is still low (shown in the red bars). Compared to the same week last year, supply is down roughly 10% – and it was already considered low at that time. But, if you look further back, you’ll see inventory is down even more significantly.To gauge just how far off from normal today’s inventory is, let’s compare right now to 2019 (the last normal year in the market). When you compare the same week this year with the matching week in 2019, supply is about 50% lower. That means there are half the homes for sale now than there’d usually be.The key takeaway? We’re still nowhere near what’s considered a balanced market. There’s plenty of demand for houses because there just aren’t enough homes to go around. As Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors (NAR), explains:
“There are simply not enough homes for sale. The market can easily absorb a doubling of inventory.”
So, if your client wants to list their house, know that there’s still only about half the inventory there’d usually be in a more normal year.
Bottom Line
With the number of homes for sale roughly half of what there’d usually be in a more normal year, you can rest assured there’s still overwhelming demand for houses. If your clients wants to sell, then try to list it now, because it’s still very much a seller’s market.
