The housing market started off the new year with fewer homes for sale than ever before, as active listings fell 27% from a year earlier. The number of newly-listed homes for sale fell 10%, but anecdotes from Redfin agents suggest that listings may soon begin to pick up.
“We’re kicking off yet another year with a whole lot of buyers whose home search has been ongoing for months, and they are as eager as ever,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “This month, the stage will be set for the 2022 housing market, and we’ll be closely watching whether prices climb like they usually do in January or whether they start off high and stagnate due to rising mortgage rates. We’re also keeping a close eye on new listings. I’ve already been hearing from Redfin agents in extremely supply-constrained markets like Austin that they are getting more interest than usual from homeowners about selling early this year. A lot of these people spent the last couple months getting their homes spruced up and ready to list. This gives me hope that more sellers will be motivated to take action now that the new year has arrived.”
Unless otherwise noted, the data in this report covers the four-week period ending January 2. Redfin’s housing market data goes back through 2012.
Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of all the metrics used in this report.
