Newly Listed Homes Surpass 2019 Levels for the First Time

The number of homes listed for sale surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the start of the year, according to a report from Redfin.

New listings of homes for the four weeks ending July 4 were up 4% from a year earlier. They were also up 3% from the same period in 2019. This was the first time new listings have surpassed 2019 levels since the beginning of the year.

Even though more homes came on the market, demand began to slip. Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather says many buyers have backed away from the housing market and are waiting for more homes to be listed.

“Buyers don’t have the same sense of urgency that they did at the beginning of the year,” Fairweather said in a prepared statement. “They aren’t racing to buy before prices increase, because asking prices have already increased and stabilized. And they aren’t racing to buy before mortgage rates go up, because rates have dropped back below 3% and are likely to stay low. With more new listings starting to come on the market, buyers who threw in the towel may want to look again because the market is tilting more in their favor.”

A recent CoreLogic survey has similar takeaways. Eighty-two percent of consumers say housing affordability is a crucial problem. Another large group of respondents, 33%, said they would wait to buy or not buy at all rather than make sacrifices on their purchase. 

Still, the median home sales price continued to rise, increasing 22% year over year for the four-week period ending July 4 to $364,430, which is a record high. In addition, the asking prices of newly listed homes rose 12% from the same time a year to a median of $359,500. Redfin says this was a decline of 1.1% from the four weeks ending June 27.

Pending sales rose 17% year over year for the four weeks ending July 4, which was the smallest increase since the four weeks ending July 19, 2020. Pending sales fell 6% from the four weeks ending May 30, compared to a 3% decrease over the same period in 2019.

Active listings for the four weeks ending July 4 fell 32% from 2020, the smallest decline since the four weeks ending February 7. However, they have climbed 8% since their 2021 low during the four weeks ending March 7.

And homes are still moving fast. Fifty-four percent of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market for the four weeks ending July 4. That was well above the 45% rate during the same period a year ago, but down 2.7 percentage points from the high point of the year in March.

A large percentage of homes, 40%, that went under contract for the four weeks ending July 4 had an offer accepted within a week, according to Redfin. While that was higher than the 32% during the same period a year earlier, it was down three percentage points from the high point of the year in March.

Homes sold were on the market for a median of 15 days for the four weeks ending July 4. That was an all-time low that has been flat for the last four weeks. It was also down from 39 days a year earlier. A record 55% of homes sold above list price, which was an increase from 27% a year ago.