As the summer retreated into the fall and the winter set to take over in a few weeks, the seasonal trend in the United States of declining inventory has started to take over as well.
Usually around October and November, construction activity recedes to yearly lows in time for the holiday season in December. In its September National Housing Trend report, realtor.com found that September's housing inventory stood at five and a half months. Economists consider six or seven months as normal.
Inventory has largely been low this whole year. But, some areas in particular posted large dips in stock of homes for sale. Below is the list in descending order (percentage on year-over-year basis):
- Las Vegas: -37.9%
- San Jose, Calif.: -36.2%
- Columbus, Ohio: -29%
- Cincinnati: -26.5%
- Houston: -25.2%
- Washington, D.C.: -25%
- San Francisco: -23.4%
- Chicago: -22.8%
However, some areas saw growth in inventory. Below is the list:
- Honolulu: +27.5%
- Orlando, Fla.: +25.8%
- Miami: +22%
- Charleston, W.Va.: +20.1%
More recently, the National Association of Realtors announced in its September existing home sales report that housing stock was down 1.3 percent, but unsold inventory was still high at 6 percent.
"Traditional buyers are entering a less competitive market with fewer investors searching for available homes, but may also face a slight decline in choices due to the fact that inventory generally falls heading into the winter," Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, explained.
But supply improved in September. The total housing production rose 6.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted 1.017 million units in September. The figure is up 17.8 percent from a year ago and is also above the 970,000 units mark in August. Building permits also increased 1.5 percent on a month-on-month basis.
"These numbers show starts returning to levels we saw earlier this summer, where they hovered around one million units. We are hopeful this pattern of modest growth will continue as we close out the year," Kevin Kelly, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), said in a statement.
