May 2021 housing data – we may have achieved peak frenzy

Note: I did some housekeeping on the graphs, getting rid of
many that I thought didn’t add that much value. For example, condo
data was volatile without adding much info (so I mostly focus on
single family homes now), and contingent inventory hasn’t been a
factor for many years. Also, for the long-term price graphs I wanted
a log scale graph, and user spdrun told me a trick for getting those
to look good (thank you spdrun!). However, the downside is that the
Y axis units on the log scale graph are pretty meaningless. So, for
both the long term price graphs (pr/sq foot and Case Shiller), I
include both a linear and log scale version.

OK, onto the data. Looking at these graphs, my feeling is that the
frenzy has probably peaked. It’s still a frenzy! But months of
inventory has finally stopped declining and even rose a bit. (Edit: to be clear, I am not suggesting that prices have peaked, just that the imbalance between supply and demand may have started to diminish).

Zooming out, supply and demand might be moving back towards balance,
but it has a long way to go:

As for prices, based on the single family price/square foot they
appear to have held at last month’s level, but there is noise in
these monthly figures, as is clear from last month’s dramatic
increase. The Case-Shiller estimate rose as it is based on the past
3 months of price/sq ft. (Remember: there are 2 versions of each
graph, the linear one to get a sense of the units, and the
logarithmic one to better represent the magnitude of changes over
time).

Here’s months of inventory vs. price changes, which have correlated
strongly in the past:

While inventory (inverted on the chart) is still quite low, it’s
also the case that prices overshot the gains we should have expected
given current inventory levels. So there could be some price
pullback for that reason. Aside from that, this level of inventory
is suggests continued price increases, if it remains this low. (The
sustainability of this situation is a whole other topic, and a
difficult one, which is not addressed here).

That’s it on the comments; few more graphs below…