by Calculated Risk on 6/17/2021 04:39:00 PM

I'm gathering existing home data for many local markets, and I'm watching inventory very closely this year.

As I noted in Some thoughts on Housing Inventory

The key for housing in 2021 will be inventory. If inventory stays extremely low, there will be more housing starts and a larger increase in house prices. However, if inventory increases significantly, there will be fewer starts and less price appreciation.

The table below shows some data for May.

Although inventory in these areas is down about 54% year-over-year, inventory is mostly unchanged month-to-month.  Seasonally we'd usually expect an increase in inventory from April to May.   

It does appear inventory bottomed seasonally in March.

Note: California reported a 6.6% increase in active inventory from April to May, but they don't report the actual numbers - so California isn't include in the table below.

Existing Home Inventory
	May-21	Apr-21	May-20	YoY	MoM
Alabama	9,363	9,582	17,042	-45.1%	-2.3%
Atlanta	7,530	6,964	19,352	-61.1%	8.1%
Boston	3,418	3,788	4,250	-19.6%	-9.8%
Charlotte	3104	3,018	8,177	-62.0%	2.8%
Colorado	7,034	7,872	23,060	-69.5%	-10.6%
Denver	2,075	2,594	7,170	-71.1%	-20.0%
Houston	22,607	22,794	38,048	-40.6%	-0.8%
Las Vegas	2560	2,346	7,567	-66.2%	9.1%
Maryland	7,490	7,167	17,254	-56.6%	4.5%
Minnesota	8,953	9,020	18,074	-50.5%	-0.7%
New Hampshire	1,959	1,852	4,331	-54.8%	5.8%
North Texas	8,126	8,084	21,610	-62.4%	0.5%
Northwest	5,533	5,616	10,357	-46.6%	-1.5%
Phoenix	5218	4541	11,418	-54.3%	14.9%
Portland	2,339	2,222	4,551	-48.6%	5.3%
Rhode Island	1,143	1,520	3,036	-62.4%	-24.8%
South Carolina	11,278	11,237	24,878	-54.7%	0.4%
Total1	96,377	96,386	208,127	-53.7%	0.0%
1excluding Denver (included in Colorado)