Housing Market Rebound Stalls in February

HouseCanary, Inc. has released its latest Market Pulse report, covering 22 listing-derived metrics and comparing data between February 2022 and February 2023. The Market Pulse is an ongoing review of proprietary data and insights from HouseCanary’s nationwide platform.

Key Takeaways:

• For the month of February 2023, 157,967 net new listings were placed on the market, and 247,294 properties went under contract. This represents a decrease of 43.6% and 17.0%, respectively, versus February 2022.
• The decrease in net new listings was driven by a 31.7% decrease in new listing volume as well as a 72.6% increase in removals compared to February 2022.
• Median days on market stood at 43, up 48.3% from the prior year at 29 days on market. Days on the market decreased by 18.9% on a month-over-month basis.
• The sale-to-list-price ratio stands at 97.1%, which is slightly above the lowest value observed in January 2023.
• Price cuts are up 173.6% year-over-year but are down nearly 63% from their recent peaks occurring in September and October 2022.
• Total single-family rental inventory is up 61.7% from the same period in 2022, and up 88.3% from 2021.

February was the tenth consecutive month of double-digit declines in net new listings on a year-over-year basis. Consequently, this has continued to drive down prices and lag contract volume, providing little relief to the ongoing inventory shortage. The market is also experiencing significant increases in listing removals year-over-year. On the contrary, the single-family rental market inventory has recovered considerably since the pandemic, experiencing an 88.3% rebound since February 2021.

Although rate hikes from the Federal Reserve picked back up in February, some observations made in the last couple of months have persisted, such as the days on market and sale-to-list-price ratio continuing to imply a balanced market but displaying signs of trending towards a buyer’s market. Notably, median days on market have decreased from 53 in January to 43 in February, representing an 18.9% decrease month-over-month.

“Although the rate hike slowdown from the Federal Reserve in January helped bolster housing market activity, these early signs of a potential rebound were halted in February," said Jeremy Sicklick, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HouseCanary. "While higher interest rates continue to slow market activity, we believe that the market environment is still headed towards a buyer’s market, and expect that more normalized supply-demand dynamics and pricing could be in play by the end of 2023.”

To read the full report, including more data and methodology, click here.