The latest market report from Zillow shared some good news for buyers: a slight increase in new listings for August—which is a nice surprise given inventory typically drops during the end-of-summer slowdown.
It’s good to have options. And today’s homebuyers have had significantly fewer to choose from compared to a year ago. But with the uptick in new listings from July to August, the year-over-year decline has shrunken from 25.6% (in July) to 12.7%.
While sellers are still putting fewer homes on the market compared to pre-pandemic norms, the monthly bump in inventory has given buyers a small but welcome bit of relief.
Meanwhile, home values also rose month over month, though only by 0.2%, bringing annual appreciation to 1.3%.
Those still shopping for homes late in summer were offered a bit of relief, and not all from expected sources. Competition for houses tends to ease up at this time of year, giving buyers more time to decide and a better chance to negotiate on price. What we didn’t expect — especially considering 7-plus-percent mortgage rates — was more new listings. The inventory crunch is still far from resolved, but this was a small step in the right direction. Jeff Tucker - Zillow Senior Economist
INVENTORY ROSE MONTH OVER MONTH BUT REMAINS WELL BELOW 2019 LEVELS
Sellers in the U.S. listed almost 350,000 homes for sale in August—up 4% from the previous month. And while the number of new listings is still more than 20% behind pre-pandemic norms, the surprise uptick gave buyers some fresh options to choose from at a time when inventory tends to fall back.
According to Zillow data, new listings have contracted every August since 2018. This year’s slight uptick helped cut the annual decline roughly in half—from -25.6% in July to 12.7% in August.
