It's Spring, typically considered the most active home buying period of the year, and inventory pressures continue to pervade the housing market. That’s according to HouseCanary’s March Market Pulse.
While inventory is up 12.6% and 19.2% from the same periods in 2023 and 2022, respectively, total housing stock continues to remain historically low.
Net new listings and contract volumes have continued to trend at multi-year seasonal lows during March. HouseCanary’s co-founder and chief executive officer Jeremy Sicklick cited interest rate shock as the biggest factor sustaining inventory scarcity. The continued expectation that the Federal Reserve will introduce interest rate cuts in the months ahead offers potential homeowners a sense of hope, however for now, buyers are facing a seller’s market, per the HouseCanary report.
For the month of March 2024, 234,838 net new listings were placed on the market which represents a 4.4% decrease versus March 2023. 275,260 properties went under contract during this time, marking a 3.2% increase year over year.
Over the last 52 weeks, there have been 2,534,339 net new listings placed on the market. This represents a 12.4% decrease versus the year prior. During the same time period, 2,583,740 properties went under contract, representing a decrease of 9.8%.
The decrease in net new listings was driven by a 2.5% decrease in new listing volume as well as a 7% increase in removals compared to March 2023.
Broken out by price bins, the $0-$200k bin has accounted for 13.2% of net new listings over the last 52 weeks; the $200k-$400k bin - 38.6% of net new listings; the $400k-$600k bin, 23.7% of net new listings; the $600k-$1m bin at 16.1% of net new listings, and the $1m+ bin at 8.4% of net new listings.
The median price of all single-family listings in the U.S. was $441,608 and the median closed price was $413,998. On a year-over-year basis, the median price of all single-family listings is up 3.2% and the median price of closed listings is up 6.8%. Month-over-month, the median price of single-family listings is up 2.5% and the median price of closed listings is up 3.4%.
