Final Look at Local Housing Markets in March
After the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) releases the monthly existing home sales report, I pick up additional local market data that is reported after the NAR. This is the final look at local markets in March.
I’ve added a comparison of active listings, new listings, and closings to the same month in 2019 (for markets with available data). This gives us a sense of the current low level of sales and inventory, and also shows some significant regional differences.
The big stories for March were that existing home sales decreased to 4.19 million on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR), and new listings were up YoY for the 6th consecutive month although new listing growth slowed.
Active Inventory in March
Here is a summary of active listings for these early reporting housing markets.
Inventory for these markets were up 11.3% year-over-year in February and are now up 14.3% year-over-year. A key will be how much inventory builds over the next few months.
Inventory is down sharply in most of these areas compared to 2019.
Notes for all tables:
New additions to table in BOLD.
Northwest (Seattle), Jacksonville Source: Northeast Florida Association of REALTORS®
Totals do not include Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis (included in state totals)
Comparison to 2019 ONLY includes local markets with available 2019 data!
New Listings in March
And here is a table for new listings in March (some areas don’t report new listings). For these areas, new listings were up 3.2% year-over-year.
Last month, new listings in these markets were up 21.8% year-over-year.
New listings are now up year-over-year, but still at historically low levels. New listings in most of these areas are down compared to 2019 activity.
Closed Sales in March
And a table of March sales.
In March, sales in these markets were down 10.3% YoY. In February, these same markets were up 1.5% year-over-year Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).
Sales in most of these markets are down compared to 2019.
This was a 10.3% year-over-year decrease NSA for these markets. This is about the same as the 9.7% decline NSA reported by the NAR.
However, there were two fewer working days in March 2024 compared to March 2023, so sales Seasonally Adjusted were down less year-over-year than Not Seasonally Adjusted sales.
Note that closed sales in March were mostly for contracts signed in January and February when 30-year mortgage rates averaged 6.64% and 6.78%, respectively.
April sales will be mostly for contracts signed in February and March and mortgage rates increased slightly to an average of 6.83% in March. My early expectation is we will see a sales decrease in April on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR) compared to March.
Note for next month (April sales): There were two more working days in April 2024 compared to April 2023, so seasonally adjusted sales will be lower than the NSA data suggests.
This graph shows existing home sales by month for 2023 and 2024. This was the thirty-first consecutive month with sales down year-over-year.
Sales in April 2023 were reported at 4.22 million SAAR.
More local data coming in May for activity in April!