Housing Inventory’s Downward Slide

Realtor.com’s November Monthly Housing Report found that the number of available homes is declining at an “accelerating pace” in the nation’s largest metros.

Inventory fell 9.5% in November—growing from last month’s 6.9% drop and amounts to the loss of 131,000 listings compared to last year. The volume of new inventory hitting the market decreased by 7.7% since November 2018.

Housing inventory in the 50 largest U.S. metro fell year-over-year by 8.8% in November. San Diego, California, saw the biggest inventory drop at 28.1%, followed by Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona (24.1%) and Rochester, New York (22.4%).

Four of the 50 largest metros saw inventory increase over the past year. The largest increases were in Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, Nevada (14.4%); Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota-Wisconsin (11.5%); and San Antonio, New Braunfels, Texas (72%).

Nationally, homes sold in 70 days in November—two days quicker than in November 2018. Raleigh, North Carolina; Hartford, Connecticut; and Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama saw the largest declines in days on the market at 10, 10, and nine, few days on the market respectively.

Homes in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, California; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California; and Las Vegas sold 20, 12, and 10 days slower.

Median-home prices grew by 3.6% nationally to $309,000 in November, which is behind the prior months’ 4.3% price growth. The Los Angeles metro had the nation’s highest average price increase at 16.6%.

San Jose had the highest average list price of nearly $1.1 million. Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio has the nation’s lowest average listing price of $185,000, which is a 0.3% increase from November 2018.

Additionally, 19.5% of all listing saw their prices fall from the prior year in November. The metro of Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Oregon-Washington, saw the highest increase in price reductions in November at 8%. This was followed by Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky-Indiana (5.2%); and Birmingham (4.%)