by Calculated Risk on 10/16/2023 08:19:00 AM

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.8% week-over-week.

Click on graph for larger image.

This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.

As of October 13th, inventory was at 546 thousand (7-day average), compared to 537 thousand the prior week.   

Year-to-date, inventory is up 11.3%.  And inventory is up 34.8% from the seasonal bottom 26 weeks ago.

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

The red line is for 2023.  The black line is for 2019.  Note that inventory is up from the record low for the same week in 2021, but below last year and still well below normal levels.

Inventory was down 3.5% compared to the same week in 2022 (last week it was down 4.3%), and down 42.3% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week down 43.8%). 

In 2022, inventory didn't peak until late October, and it appears same week inventory will be below 2022 levels for the remainder of the year - depending on when inventory finally peaks this year!

It also seems likely that inventory will be above 2020 levels (dark blue line) sometime in the next few weeks.

Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.