25 Jun Atlanta Among Top 10 Metro Areas With Shrinking Inventory
Articles, reports and story after story may have your mind spinning and wondering what is really going on with the housing industry. Is it getting better? There are plenty of statistics that show it is. Is it getting worse? There are reams of stories shouting just that idea. So what is the reality? Likely, a little of both.
Mostly, things are improving, there is just two much evidence in that direction. Houses are being purchased and not only resales. There are new homes being built. Yes, mortgage rates are continuing to drop and the recent news of so many top banks being downgraded could certainly lead to home buyers finding it even more difficult to obtain a loan, but overall, home sales have been ticking up month after month.
More telling than almost anything is the news that home inventories are shrinking in many areas across the country – including Atlanta. Below is an article from June 13th speaking about just that topic. What does this mean for you? If you’ve been holding off buying that ‘perfect home’, the time may be fast approaching where finding that ‘perfect home’ will become much harder. As sellers continue to hold out for more improvement in housing prices and those houses on the market are sold, what is left for buyers is an ever shrinking inventory!
When you decide it’s time to buy – give The Anderson Group a call!
Top 10 metros for shrinking inventory
Editor’s note: Data collected and analyzed by Realtor.com through May 2012. Includes single-family homes, condos, townhomes and co-ops.
The national housing market continues to stabilize, according to data compiled by Realtor.com for 146 U.S. metros through May 2012.
May continued April’s year-over-year upswing, with for-sale inventory dropping 20.07 percent, median list prices jumping 3.17 percent to $194,900, and median age of for-sale inventory falling 9.78 percent compared to a year ago.
| Data Point | Percent Change, May 2012 vs. May 2011 |
| Number of Listings | -20.07% |
| Median List Price | 3.17% |
| Median Age of Inventory | -9.78% |
As of May, national for-sale inventory stood at 1.88 million units, roughly 60 percent of a September 2007 inventory peak of 3.1 million units (2007 was the first year Realtor.com tracked this data nationally).
Despite a slight 1.96 percent month-over-month increase in national inventory — expected because listings usually swell during the springtime buying season — all but two of the 146 metros Realtor.com tracks had fewer homes for sale than a year ago.
Some of those markets hit hardest in the housing crisis — Atlanta and metros in Florida, Arizona and California — are showing some consistent, month-by-month turnaround. In May, Phoenix, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., and Atlanta were among the top 10 metros Realtor.com tracks with year-over-year percentage drops in for-sale inventory.
This month, six of the metros in the top 10 that saw the greatest reduction in inventories from a year ago were in California, including three in the San Francisco Bay Area: Oakland at No. 1 (56.6 percent fewer listings than a year ago); San Jose at No. 6 (40.88 percent fewer listings); and San Francisco at No. 10 (38.9 percent fewer listings).
Top 10 metros for greatest year-over-year reduction in for-sale inventory, May 2012
| Rank | Metro | For-sale inventory, percent change, May 2012 vs. May 2011 |
| 1 | Oakland, Calif. | -56.60% |
| 2 | Fresno, Calif. | -48.76% |
| 3 | Bakersfield, Calif. | -48.59% |
| 4 | Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz. | -44.71% |
| 5 | Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash. | -42.65% |
| 6 | San Jose, Calif. | -40.80% |
| 7 | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla. | -39.76% |
| 8 | Stockton-Lodi, Calif. | -39.25% |
| 9 | Atlanta | -39.19% |
| 10 | San Francisco | -38.90% |
Source: Realtor.com
Location: Atlanta
| For-sale inventory, year-over-year change (%) | -39.19% |
| Number of listings | 46,974 |
| Median age of inventory (days) | 64 |
| Median list price | $169,900 |
Turner Field in downtown Atlanta via SeanPavonePhoto/Shutterstock