by Calculated Risk on 5/16/2022 09:32:00 AM

Altos reports inventory is up year-over-year!

Inventory usually declines in the winter, and then increases in the spring. Inventory bottomed seasonally at the beginning of March 2022 and is now up 32% since then.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of May 13th, inventory was at 318 thousand (7-day average), compared to 305 thousand the prior week. Inventory was up 4.2% from the previous week.

Inventory is still very low. Compared to the same week in 2021, inventory is up 1.5% from 314 thousand, however compared to the same week in 2020, and inventory is down 56.4% from 729 thousand.  Compared to 3 years ago, inventory is down 65.2% from 915 thousand.

Here are the inventory milestones I’m watching for with the Altos data:

1. The seasonal bottom (happened on March 4th for Altos) ✅

2. Inventory up year-over-year (happened on May 13th for Altos) ✅

3. Inventory up compared to two years ago (currently down 56% according to Altos)

4. Inventory up compared to 2019 (currently down 65%).

Here is a graph of the inventory change year-over-year and vs two years ago (milestone 3 above).

The blue line is the year-over-year data, and the red line is compared to two years ago.

Inventory is now up year-over-year.  Two years ago (in 2020) inventory was declining all year, so the two-year comparison will get easier all year.

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.