The net volume of new listings of homes for sale fell by double-digits for the 10th straight month in February, according to a new report from HouseCanary Inc.
The national brokerage on Wednesday released its latest Market Pulse report, covering 22 listing-derived metrics and comparing data between February 2022 and February 2023. The Market Pulse is an ongoing review of proprietary data and insights from HouseCanary’s nationwide platform.
For the month of February 2023, 157,967 net new listings were placed on the market, down 43.6% from a year earlier, while 247,294 properties went under contract, a 17% year-over-year decline.
With net new listings continuing to decline significantly on a year-over-year basis, it has continued to drive down home prices and lag contract volume, providing little relief to the ongoing inventory shortage, the report said.
The market is also experiencing significant increases in listing removals year-over-year, while the single-family rental market inventory has recovered considerably since the pandemic, experiencing an 88.3% rebound since February 2021, HouseCanary said.
Although the Federal Reserve imposed another rate hike in February, some observations made in the last couple of months have persisted, such as the days on market and sale-to-list-price ratio continuing to imply a balanced market while displaying signs of trending towards a buyer’s market, the company said.
Notably, the median number of days on market have decreased from 53 in January to 43 in February, representing an 18.9% decrease month-over-month.
“Although the rate hike slowdown from the Federal Reserve in January helped bolster housing market activity, these early signs of a potential rebound were halted in February,” said Jeremy Sicklick, co-founder and CEO of HouseCanary. “While higher interest rates continue to slow market activity, we believe that the market environment is still headed towards a buyer’s market, and expect that more normalized supply-demand dynamics and pricing could be in play by the end of 2023.”
Key Takeaways:
- In February 2023, 157,967 net new listings were placed on the market, and 247,294 properties went under contract, decreases of 43.6% and 17%, respectively, from a year earlier.
- The decrease in net new listings was driven by a 31.7% decrease in new listing volume, as well as a 72.6% increase in removals compared to February 2022.
- Median days on market stood at 43, up 48.3% from 29 days on market a year earlier. Days on market decreased by 18.9% on a month-over-month basis.
- The sale-to-list-price ratio stands at 97.1%, slightly above the lowest value observed in January 2023.
- Price cuts are up 173.6% year-over-year, but are down nearly 63% from their recent peaks that occurred in September and October 2022.
- Total single-family rental inventory is up 61.7% from the same period in 2022, and up 88.3% from 2021.
Founded in 2013, San Francisco-based HouseCanary provides software and services for the real estate marketplace.
