Inventory is climbing ahead of the summer market frenzy as the total number of homes posted its biggest year-over-year uptick since May 2023 as of March 17 of while new listings jumped to number not seen since June 2021.
This surge in inventory is likely to bring some sidelined buyers back to the market. Mortgage-purchase applications and Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of requests for tours and other buying services from Redfin agents—are each up roughly 9% month over month.
However, according to Redfin, this increase in inventory levels has yet to dampen price growth. The median home price is now demanding 5.3% more than it was year-over-year the second-biggest increase since October 2022, and the median monthly mortgage payment is just $31 shy of its all-time high due to elevated mortgage rates and prices. Redfin economists expect mortgage rates to gradually decline throughout 2024, an outlook that was little changed in the wake of this week’s Fed press conference, in which the Fed held interest rates steady.
Other indicators of overall market health as published by Redfin
- Weekly average 30-year fixed rate mortgage: 6.74%, up from 6.6% year-over-year.
- Mortgage-purchase applications: down 9% month-over-month and down 14% year-over-year.
- Google searches of “home for sale”: down 18% year-over-year
- Median sale price: $374,074, up 5.3% year-over-year
- Median asking price: $404,273, up 5.7% year-over-year
- Median monthly mortgage payment: $2,685 at 6.74% apr, up 8.5% year-over-year
- Pending sales: 82,464, down 4.4% year-over-year
- New listings: 88,902, up 15.1% year-over-year
- Active listings: 795,645, up 4.9% year-over-year
- Months of supply: 3.4 months, up 0.4% year-over-year
- Median days on market: 43, down one day year-over-year
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