Housing Inventory Down Seven Weeks & Counting

Housing Inventory fell for the 7th week in a row setting up an interesting start to 2023, according to the weekly report from Altos Research.

• Housing inventory fell to 521,000 for the third week of December, this is down 2.5% from last week and is now down almost double digits (-9.7%) from the 577k peak in October.

• Altos now predicts inventory levels will fall to 500k to start 2023.

Price. The median home price fell to $410,000 this week, this is down 1.2% from last week and is now down 9.7% from the mid-June peak of $454,000.

• Price reductions also fell this week to 41.2%, this is down 43.2% peak reported in November but above the five-year average of around 30% normally seen this time of year.

• After a big jump last week, the median price of a new listing fell to $359,500, this is 1.6% lower than last week but still up from the 2022 bottom ($349,000) reported at the start of the month.

Analysis. As certain data points improve Mike Simonsen, CEO of Altos Research, says the 2023 housing market has a chance to be saved. “2023 is setting up to start with only 500k homes on the market. That’s fewer than it looked like most of the year. If rates stay in the low 6s or 5s, we might save the 2023 housing market after all”