1st Look at Local Housing Markets in January

Early Reports Suggest Sales might be up Slightly Year-over-year in January

NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to January 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available).

This is the first look at several early reporting local markets in December. I’m tracking about 40 local housing markets in the US. Some of the 40 markets are states, and some are metropolitan areas. I’ll update these tables throughout the month as additional data is released.

Closed sales in January were mostly for contracts signed in November and December when 30-year mortgage rates averaged 7.44% and 6.82%, respectively.

Active Inventory in January

Here is a summary of active listings for these early reporting housing markets in January.

Inventory for these markets were down 3.8% year-over-year in December and are now down 4.2% year-over-year. A key will be if inventory builds over the next few months.

Inventory is down sharply in all of these areas compared to 2019.

Notes for all tables:

1. New additions to table in BOLD.

   

New Listings in January

And here is a table for new listings in January (some areas don’t report new listings). For these areas, new listings were up 6.2% year-over-year.

Last month, new listings in these markets were down 2.8% year-over-year.

New listings are now up year-over-year, but still at historically low levels. New listings in all of these areas are down compared to January 2019 activity.

Closed Sales in January

And a table of January sales.