Sellers continued to drive a housing market with low supply and eager buyers as total for-sale inventory contracted for the 13th straight week and typical time-on-market maintained record lows, according to Zillow’s Weekly Market Report for the week ending August 29. Typical homes on the market are more expensive as median list prices are up nearly 9% compared to last year. Buyers may see relief on the horizon, however, as new for-sale inventory rose month-over-month and is closer to last-year’s figures than at any time since March.
New York City’s newly pending sales are up 51.4% year-over-year, and rose 2.3% over the previous week. New for-sale listings increased 23.6% year over year. The median sale price of $448,375 is a 2.9% increase over 2019.
As has been the case for the past three weeks, homes nationally are typically going under contract 13 days after they’re listed. his is two weeks faster than a year ago and the shortest median time on market in Zillow’s weekly records going back through January 2019. Newly pending sales are up 18.4% compared to last year, the highest year-over-year gain since November 2019. The level is holding steady, with no change compared to a month ago, and only a slight increase (0.5%) week over week.
New sellers may help sate rapid demand as new for-sale inventory rose 3.5% compared to a month prior. The number of new listings is nearly back to normal for this time of year, Zillow said; at just 4.5% below the same week in 2019, the year-over-year gap is the smallest seen since March. Inventory continues a long contraction that began the first week of June. Total for-sale inventory is down 29.1% year over year, the largest yearly deficiency since at least January 2019. For-sale inventory is down 3.6% month over month and is slightly tighter than the previous week (-0.8%).
Sellers are clearly in the driver’s seat as median list prices grew to $345,722. The 8.9% rise in list price compared to last year is the largest year-over-year increase since at least January 2019.
