The already difficult task of buying a home became even more challenging this week as home price growth hit a two-year high and natural disasters drove the number of homes for sale even lower, according to realtor.com’s® Weekly Housing Report for the week ending Sept. 12. Overall, the housing market remains strong but saw a slight tempering last week as wildfires and hurricanes prevented potential sellers across the West and South from listing their homes.
“Today’s home buyers face some daunting challenges. Home price growth just set a new high of 11% with no indication of a slowdown and there are nearly 40% fewer homes for sale than this time last year,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for realtor.com.® “Inventory is so low that any disruption, such as this week’s wildfires and hurricanes, feels even more stifling for would-be home buyers. Although this year is anything but typical, we expect inventory to follow the usual seasonal pattern of tapering off in the next few weeks, but we don’t expect buyer demand to drop off as much as usual. Buyers hoping to take advantage of less competition during the housing off-season will likely be disappointed and could find it even more difficult to find a home.”
Wildfires, Hurricanes and the Labor Day holiday worsened declines in homes for sale
Strong demand drove home prices 11.1% higher than last year — a two-year record
Quick home sales are today’s new normal
Housing market remains strong but saw a slight weakening due to declines in inventory
Link to Index Commentary Blog Post: https://www.realtor.com/research/housing-market-recovery-index-trends-sep-12-data/
Methodology: The Weekly Housing Index leverages a weighted average of realtor.com® search traffic, median list prices, new listings, and median time on market and compares it to the January 2020 market trend, as a baseline for pre-COVID market growth. The overall index is set to 100 in this baseline period. The higher a market’s index value, the higher its recovery and vice versa.
Media Contacts:
Cody Horvat, cody.horvat@move.com