Inland Empire leads ways as listings loosen up

The number of homes for sale across the U.S. has spiked for the first time since June 2019, with the Inland Empire among the biggest gainers.

The number of active U.S. listings rose 8 percent in May from the year before, likely driven by new sellers and a slowdown in would-be buyers put off by high prices, the Los Angeles Daily News reported, citing a Realtor.com report. Listings were down 12 percent year-over-year in April.

Among the 50 metro areas tracked, the year’s largest jump in homes on the market was in Austin (up 86 percent), followed by Phoenix (up 67 percent), Sacramento (up 55 percent) and the Inland Empire (up 52 percent).

The largest increases in new listings were in the West and the South.

In California, the capital city of Sacramento was third in the nation for its jump in unsold homes, with a median listing price of $649,000, up 11 percent from a year earlier.

The Inland Empire, containing Riverside and San Bernardino counties, ranked fourth, with a median listing price of $599,000, up 14.2 percent.

San Francisco ranked 12th in the nation, with a 32-percent rise in listings, with a median price of $1.13 million, up $3.8 percent.

San Jose ranked 15th, with a 23-percent rise in listings, with a median price of nearly $1.5 million, up 15.1 percent.

San Diego ranked 26th, with a 10 percent rise in listings, with a median price of $926,000, up 15.9 percent.

Los Angeles and Orange County, combined, ranked 31st, with a 5 percent rise in listings, with a median price of $972,000, up 1.4 percent.

Last month, a tight housing supply may have turned the corner – though listings remain 49 percent below their May 2020 level, and price increases have accelerated. In December, the weekly home listings had hit a record low.

“While this real estate refresh is welcome news in a still-undersupplied market, it has yet to make a dent in home price growth,” Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, said in the report.

The U.S. median listing price rose to a record $447,000 in May, after crossing the $400,000 threshold in March. And buyers struck deals more quickly than in any month in Realtor.com surveys going back to July 2016.

Nonetheless, the jump in mortgage rates and a softening economic outlook may have thinned the number of house hunters and made bidding wars less exuberant, Hale said. In an early sign last month, the rate of sellers making price cuts increased.

[Los Angeles Daily News] – Dana Bartholomew

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