Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-January 2024

This 2-part overview for mid-January provides a snapshot of the current housing market. This includes sales, house prices, inventory, mortgage rates, rents and more.

I always like to start with inventory, since inventory usually tells the tale!

New Listings for Existing Homes Up Year-over-year in December

Here is a graph of new listing from Realtor.com’s December 2023 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report showing new listings were up 9.1% year-over-year in December. New listings finished 2023 up year-over-year mostly because new listings collapsed in the 2nd half of 2022. From Realtor.com:

Providing a boost to overall inventory, sellers turned out in higher numbers this December as newly listed homes were 9.1% above last year’s levels. This marked the second month of increasing listing activity after a 17-month streak of decline.

Note the seasonality for new listings. December and January are seasonally the weakest months of the year for new listings. It seems very likely that new listings will be up year-over-year in 2024, but we will have to wait for the March data to see how close new listings are to normal levels.

Impact on Active Inventory