The real estate market might just be officially out of the woods, at least for now, with four major economic indicators performing above pre-COVID-19 levels, according to realtor.com’s Weekly Recovery Report.
With January 2020 as the baseline for comparison, the report noted that the new listings category was the final benchmark to surpass pre-COVID-19 levels of the four-legged stool of real estate economic indicators that also include housing demand, asking prices and the pace of sales.
The realtor.com press release called the news about new listings “an important first step towards broader recovery.”
While the news is a welcomed milestone, new listings still lagged year-over-year numbers by 6%. “The small number of homes for sale has been a key limiting factor for buyers in the market, so continued recovery in new listings bodes well for home sales in the coming months,” the report stated.
The Housing Recovery Market Index hit 105.6 following the first week of August, up 1.9 points from the previous week. New supply growth was up 1.7 points nationwide over the same time period.
“Seller confidence has been improving gradually after reaching its bottom in mid-April, and now it appears to have reached an important recovery milestone,” Javier Vivas, director of economic research for realtor.com, said in the press release. “After five long months, sellers are back in the housing market; while encouraging, the improvement to new listings is only the first step in the long road to solving low inventory issues keeping many buyers at bay.”
In terms of the overall recovery index results, Houston was among best performing of the top 50 metro areas, with a recovery index number of 102.6 points, up 2.3 points from the previous week. The city trailed Seattle at 120.5 points and Las Vegas at 125.7 points.