Housing inventory remains strapped
For-sale housing inventory is still painfully low. According to new data, it dropped 6.4 percent over the year, hitting its lowest point in six years.
For-sale housing inventory falls
According to a report from Zillow, for-sale housing inventory slid 6.4 percent from September 2018 to September 2019.
Currently, there are less than 1.5 million homes on the market — the smallest number since at least 2013, when Zillow started tracking the stat.
Inventory has declined for seven months straight, with a significant dip (-4.6 percent) in August. It had previously started to rise in late 2018 (after 44 consecutive months of decreases), but began falling again in February of this year.
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Low-priced properties fall the most
The decreases have been most prevalent on lower-priced properties. According to Zillow’s data, for-sale homes in the lowest price tier dropped 10.3 percent over the year. Homes in this price tier are also less likely to see a price cut, (only 12.7 percent saw a price reduction last month, versus 17.3 percent of high-priced homes and 15.7 percent of homes overall.)
As Cory Hopkins, Zillow’s senior managing editor, explains, “The inventory buildup and eventual decline was especially severe among entry-level homes valued in the bottom one-third of all homes, which are often targeted by first-time and/or low-income buyers.”
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Broken down, about 640,000 for-sale homes are in the top third in terms of pricing. Over 400,000 are in the middle third of pricing, and just 300,000 are in the lowest third.
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