Hello friends — months of inventory continued to surpass its pre-pandemic average last month:
Looking at a long-term graph, it can be seen that months of inventory is higher than it has been since the mini-slowdown in late 2018.
It should be pointed out that inventory on its own is still quite a bit lower than pre-pandemic norms, but is offset by even-lower sales activity:
This is the market dynamic of the past couple years in action… prices are too high for many buyers to buy, and mortgage rates are too high for owners to sell (and get bumped into a higher rate). We’ll get back to the old equilibrium someday, but that will require some combination of homes becoming more affordable, rates dropping, or enough time passing to sufficiently dull the effect of rate lock-in.
More graphs below, and I’ll follow up soon-ish with a valuation update.
