Well, we finally got the seasonal inventory bump we've been waiting for nationally.  And, looking at the numbers locally, I'm expecting to see our first MoM active listings increase since July 2022. The wild part is putting things in context to show how much of a supply crunch we are in nationally.  Currently, we are at 414,000 active listings.  The same week in 2015 had 1,059,000 active listings.  That's a large gap, and to take this further, in 2007 during the financial crisis, we had over 4,000,000 active listings.  I constantly see people talking about an impending crash, or asking me when the market will fall, well...we will need to see a rapid increase in homes for sale.  It would need to happen due to unforeseen reasons, as homeowners are in a relative position of strength, the job market remains resilient (155 million strong) and a new stat I recently saw shows 42% of homes in America don't even have a mortgage.
With that said, buyers took a bit of a breather last week with mortgage rates climbing back up again and grinding here around the 6.5% area.  An impressive thing to note is despite the decline in purchase applications this past week, buyers have generally been accepting these higher rates.  The appetite for home buying remains strong, and any positive movement in rates will only be a boon.  The proof can be found in the new home sales (new construction homes).  Those numbers increased again, and the builders continue to be positive on the market moving forward.  They are sitting on inventory themselves and completing projects just waiting for rates to maintain below 6%.  Those homes will be absorbed quickly. The home builders are offering lots of juicy incentives to ensure their homes sell once released, so if you have any interest in a new construction home, let me know.

That's all for now.  If you want or need information on a specific neighborhood, please don't hesitate to reach out.


What are you seeing or hearing? I'd love to know paul@guiderealestate.com