Weekly Housing Trends View—Data for Week Ending Nov. 23, 2024

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Our research team releases monthly housing trends reports These regular reports break down inventory metrics like the number of active listings and the pace of the market. In addition, we continue to give readers more timely weekly updates, an effort that began in response to the rapid changes in the economy and housing. Generally, you can look forward to a Weekly Housing Trends View and the latest weekly housing data on Thursdays and weekly video updates from our economists. Here’s what the housing market looked like over the past week.

What this week’s data means

Home buyers are facing an uphill battle when it comes to financing their prospective purchases, with mortgage rates continuing to hover just under 7%. Buyers are hoping to see two key things happen in the market that will alleviate the burden of these higher rates: more listings for sale at lower prices. This week’s findings should make buyers cautiously optimistic, as the positive inventory trend throughout 2024 has continued and price growth continues to slow.

Key findings

The median listing price fell by 0.6% year over year

This week was the 26th in a row in which the national median home listing price was flat or falling from the corresponding week last year, a stretch that dates back to June 1st. All of these price decreases, like this week’s, have been small, so the overall change in listing prices has been minimal. Price per square foot on a national level has steadily grown over this same period, so the price improvements buyers have been seeing are actually the result of a larger share of smaller homes on the market. This is less encouraging news for buyers than it appears in the headline, but it’s still the case that more affordable homes are available to buyers willing to sacrifice some size.

New listings—a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale—climbed 2.8% this week compared with one year ago

The number of newly listed homes for sale continued to grow this week, the fourth in a row with year-over-year new listing growth over 1.5%. This is an encouraging sign that even amid a high mortgage rate environment, some sellers are willing to list their homes and make a move. We’ve talked extensively about the lock-in effect, … Read More