A Turn in the Market

There’s no denying that the pendulum that is the real estate market during Covid has swung wildly back and forth. We are currently experiencing another push to the other end of the spectrum. For example, the number of available homes in June 2022 rose 18.7% compared with the number of listings in June 2021. This is the fastest month of growth since July 2017 and accounts for an added 98,000 more homes for sale *per day* compared to this time last year.

We still have a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic levels. Even this nearly 20% monthly jump in June doesn’t even bring us close to the state of the market pre-2020. Three years ago, in June 2019, there were 53.2% more homes on the market—more than double what’s available today.

So, in what way does this spell good news for the market?  

A new influx of homes to the market finally gives buyers leverage that they’ve been sorely lacking the last three years. The ability to negotiate prices will temper the raging seller’s market we’ve been in and will help to balance lopsided sales dynamics. 

Considering that in June, median home prices hit another record high of $450,000—up 16.9% compared with last year and a whopping 31.4% compared with June 2020, this break is desperately needed. 

“…buyers have grown pickier as home prices and, more importantly, their monthly payment costs skyrocketed as mortgage rates surge,” says Chief Economist for Realtor.com, Danielle Hale. “We’re getting more supply of homes for sale just as demand is reaching a breaking point for many buyers, and this has led to a rapid rebalancing or reset of the housing market.”