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The buying competition has been fierce since this summer’s downturn in new listings. However, data from realtor.com indicates that the sellers may soon be jumping back into the market.
New listings were down 5% in the week ending on October 10, which indicates that things are looking up from the prior week ending on October 3, which showed new listings were down by 7%.
Although sellers are slowly gaining confidence and there is an increase in new listings hitting the market, a further analysis of realtor.com’s data shows that there are other factors keeping buyer competition at an all-time high right now.
During the week ending on October 10, homes sold 52 days, which is 14 days faster than they did the previous year. This is likely due to the fact that, despite a small increase in new listings compared to the previous week, there is still a large difference between the supply and demand of homes on the market.
With homes selling at such a rapid rate, it is clear that there is an “unseasonable excess of buyers in the housing market this fall,” which is making competition tough. The total number of current listings during the week ending on October 10 was a 38% decrease from the same time last year.
When more sellers reenter the market, the boost in new listings will likely cause the buying competition to slow down and the time to sell will likely decrease.
A small downturn in home prices may also be a sign that the competition will soon be slowing down. Although home prices have been on a record-setting rise, (last week’s median listing price was 12.2% over last year’s) there was a 12.9% decrease compared to the week ending on October 3. This is the first decrease in prices since April, which means home sales prices could be starting to go down.
The strength of the housing market remains strong overall. Last week’s Housing Market Recovery Index was 111.8, which is nearly 12 points more than the same time last year and 1.3 points stronger than the week ending on October 3.
