For the week ending on May 23, Zillow reported [1] its findings on the shifts occurring in housing market data, specifically showing an uptick in buyers and sellers movement on the market.
Pointing to the recent rise in new pending sales and new listings, Zillow’s report offers cautious optimism for the housing industry. With this data revealing direct evidence that there is indeed an influx of buyers and sellers currently entering the equation, this past week’s report offers some good news to celebrate amid a world current plagued with many unknowns.
However, housing remains in high demand, with supply struggling (and not succeeding thus far) to keep up. One cause for this incredibly tight inventory squeeze is that list prices are rising at a much more rapid rate versus those seen in April.
Due in part to the momentum gained by this recent rebound, the experts at Zillow are now predicting that there will be an estimated 1.8% decline in home prices through October 2020. This forecast is much brighter than the previously expected 2.7% drop that was first predicted several weeks ago.
This positive news comes following the effects experienced on the market due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Slowly, the market seems to be on the mend, with the week over week change being consistently positive ever since the weekly report that concluded on April 15 up until now.
And even though the inventory is indeed tight, as mentioned above, the silver lining is that more and more new listings are beginning to be seen as sellers tentatively dip their toes back into the market. Still, we are not out of the woods yet, as there is much room for improvement, according to the report, which revealed total for-sale listings being down 23% year-over-year.
With the limited inventory and rising demand comes the pressure on sellers to keep prices competitive and within reach for buyers. This leads Zillow economists to predict that sales in early May can be expected to be much better than they had previously thought. We will simply have to wait and see, but here’s hoping.