This is interesting...
April 2021 saw considerably more listings and solds than 2020.
At a glance, you may think that April 2021 establishes a huge improvement in both number of listings and number of homes sold. Don’t be fooled.
We can’t forget that the April 2020 numbers were extremely low due to the COVID-19 shutdown. With the severe restrictions placed on showings last March and April, many sellers pulled their homes off the market. There were also a significant number of contracts scheduled to close last April that terminated because the buyers lost their jobs or got cold feet as the economy stumbled.
Instead, let's compare April 2021 to April 2019
To understand how number of listings and number of solds have changed, it’s more appropriate to compare April 2021 to April 2019. When you compare 2019 numbers against 2021 you see that homebuyer competition has only increased.
We have less inventory and we’re selling more homes with that limited inventory. April 2021 saw only 6,734 listings compared to 7,519 listings in April 2019. We also sold more homes in April 2021 (6,374) than we did in April 2019 (5,044). Bottom line, we have fewer homes to choose from and we’re selling more of them.
It’s never been a better seller’s market.
What about a bubble?
Many buyers and sellers are asking whether we’re in a housing bubble about to burst. We’re not.
Join us for our Quarterly Trends class next Monday where we discuss the economics of our market, why we are not in a bubble, and how the market might change, or not change, with rising interest rates.