Housing inventory continues to defy expectations as it fell for the fourth straight week thanks to minimal new listings, according to the latest data from Altos Research.
- Available inventory of single-family homes for sale in the US fell this week to 436,000, this is a 1.5% decrease from last week and is now down 11.0% from the start of the year (490k).
- There were only 55,000 single-family homes newly listed for sale this week. That’s 24% fewer than last year at this time.
Home Prices. Prices increased slightly to $419,900. This up slightly from last week and is now up 4.0% for the year.
- Currently, 31.3% of the homes on the market across the US have taken a price cut. This is down from the 32.2% reported last week and from 38% at the start of the year.
- Pending sales fell 6.0% to 55,000 for the week. However, like last week, we have 23% fewer homes in contract now than we did at the tail end of the pandemic buying frenzy last year.
Analysis. Mike Simonsen, CEO of Altos, said to keep an eye on price reductions as a good meter for housing demand. Now, what if rates stay at 7% or go higher? They could go higher because the economy keeps reporting such strong growth numbers on almost all fronts. So watch price reductions as a gauge of how quickly demand gets cut off. The dark red line will curve flat and then start rising. Does it get under 30%? Do we get back into this cluster of all the recent years? Or does it reverse and head higher like last year?
The Next Hot Housing Market Is Out of This World. It’s in the Metaverse.
“Last year, the total value of land in The Sandbox, which is sold via a nonfungible token, or NFT, was estimated to be $167 million. And while land purchased directly from the Sandbox goes for about $400 a parcel, there’s an active secondary market where prices can be many times that. Proximity to land owned by celebrities and big-name brands drives up prices, too: After Snoop Dogg purchased parcels in the Sandbox and christened them “Snoopverse,” one buyer paid $450,000 just to become his neighbor.“