The supply of homes for sale is picking up in time for spring homebuying season, and improving inventory is attracting some buyers.
The total number of U.S. homes for sale climbed 5%, the biggest year-over-year uptick since May 2023, during the four weeks ending March 17. New listings rose 15%, the biggest increase since June 2021.
The surge in listings is bringing some buyers back to the market. Mortgage-purchase applications and Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index–a measure of requests for tours and other buying services from Redfin agents–are each up roughly 9% month over month.
Increasing inventory has yet to dampen price growth. The median U.S. home-sale price is up 5.3% year over year, the second-biggest increase since October 2022, and the median monthly mortgage payment is just $31 shy of its all-time high due to elevated mortgage rates and prices. Redfin economists expect mortgage rates to gradually decline throughout 2024, an outlook that was little changed in the wake of this week’s Fed press conference, in which the Fed held interest rates steady.
Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of all the metrics used in this report.
