Are the days of homes flying off the market in under a week behind us? The tide certainly appears to be turning based on new numbers out from Redfin.
A just-released report found that homes on the market for 30 or more days (aka “stale” inventory) increased by 12.5 percent in July 2022 when compared to the same period last year. Put another way, roughly two-thirds (61.2 percent) of for-sale homes were on the market for at least 30 days, up from 54.4 percent a year earlier.
That’s the first year-over-year increase in “stale” housing supply since the beginning of the pandemic.
“People want to know whether we’ve officially shifted from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. While there’s not a clear line separating those two ideas, homes sitting on the market longer is a point in buyers’ favor,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr. “Buyers can take their time making careful decisions about homes without worrying so much about bidding wars, offering over the asking price and waiving contingencies. It’s a different story for sellers, who have spent the last two years hearing about their neighbors’ homes getting multiple offers the day they go on sale. Now they need to price lower and get back to the basics of selling a home, like staging and sprucing up painting, to get buyers’ attention.”
Redfin also found that the share of homes listed for two weeks or longer was up 7.6 percent year over year in July. The share of for-sale homes on the market for 60 days or longer was up 6.8 percent to 33.5 percent, also the first increase since the beginning of the pandemic.