Inventories of homes listed for sale in January dropped by 6.6% from December to 1.77 million, the eighth straight month that listings have declined. For-sale listings are 23.2% below year-earlier levels and at the lowest point since the housing bust accelerated five years ago, according to data from Realtor.com.
All but one of the 146 markets tracked by Realtor.com had fewer homes listed than one year earlier, with Springfield, Ill., as the outlier.
Compared with one year earlier, listings were down by a whopping 55% in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and by nearly half in Miami, Phoenix, and Bakersfield, Calif. Markets with the smallest declines included New York (-1.7%) and Philadelphia (-3%).
Housing inventories typically rise heading into the spring selling season, but only four markets saw inventories increase from December, all of them in Florida. San Francisco and Boston, reported some of the largest monthly inventory declines, of 16% and 10%, respectively.
The Realtor.com figures include sale listings from more than 900 multiple-listing services across the country. They don’t cover all homes for sale, including those that are “for sale by owner” and newly constructed homes that aren’t always listed by the services.
The National Association of Realtors estimated on Wednesday that there were nearly 2.31 million homes for sale at the end of January, a 21% decline from one year earlier. The NAR estimates that at the current pace of sales, it would take 6.1 months to clear that inventory, the lowest level since April 2006, before home prices began falling.
Low inventories are a prerequisite for any housing recovery because a glut of unsold homes has been one factor pulling down prices. But it’s an open question whether these inventory declines are the sign of health that they would appear to be.
If homeowners are giving up on selling their homes because of low prices, or if inventories are declining because banks are still facing complications trying to process foreclosures, the declines could be artificial.
Economists at Goldman Sachs said the declines are a “modest positive” for the housing market, but said they also “exaggerate the improvement” in correcting supply-demand imbalances because they have stemmed primarily from a decline in new listings, and not a major pickup in sales.
Compared with one year earlier, listings were down by a whopping 55% in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and by nearly half in Miami, Phoenix, and Bakersfield, Calif. Markets with the smallest declines included New York (-1.7%) and Philadelphia (-3%).
Housing inventories typically rise heading into the spring selling season, but only four markets saw inventories increase from December, all of them in Florida. San Francisco and Boston, reported some of the largest monthly inventory declines, of 16% and 10%, respectively.
The Realtor.com figures include sale listings from more than 900 multiple-listing services across the country. They don’t cover all homes for sale, including those that are “for sale by owner” and newly constructed homes that aren’t always listed by the services.
The National Association of Realtors estimated on Wednesday that there were nearly 2.31 million homes for sale at the end of January, a 21% decline from one year earlier. The NAR estimates that at the current pace of sales, it would take 6.1 months to clear that inventory, the lowest level since April 2006, before home prices began falling.
Low inventories are a prerequisite for any housing recovery because a glut of unsold homes has been one factor pulling down prices. But it’s an open question whether these inventory declines are the sign of health that they would appear to be.
If homeowners are giving up on selling their homes because of low prices, or if inventories are declining because banks are still facing complications trying to process foreclosures, the declines could be artificial.
Economists at Goldman Sachs said the declines are a “modest positive” for the housing market, but said they also “exaggerate the improvement” in correcting supply-demand imbalances because they have stemmed primarily from a decline in new listings, and not a major pickup in sales.
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