by Calculated Risk on 1/05/2026 08:11:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was down 2.2% week-over-week.  

Note that Inventory usually bottoms seasonally in January or February.

The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2025.  The black line is for 2019.  

Inventory was up 13.3% compared to the same week in 2025 (last week it was up 13.1%), and down 6.0% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 11.8%). 

Inventory started 2026 down almost 12% compared to 2019.  

This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of January 2nd, inventory was at 720 thousand (7-day average), compared to 736 thousand the prior week.  

Mike Simonsen discusses this data and much more regularly on YouTube