Elevated borrowing costs and persistently high home prices are stifling homebuyer demand and causing for-sale listings to linger on the market, but a lack of new inventory is preventing any notable improvement in housing affordability. Total housing listings reached 945,612 in February, and while that’s up 13% from one year ago, it’s still below the 1 million benchmark that housing experts had hoped to see ahead of the spring buying season, Realtor.com reports.
Regionally, February inventory fell the fastest in Lake and DuPage counties outside of Chicago, where prices were down 62% and 59%, respectively, from five years ago.
In Clark County, Nev., housing inventory in February more than doubled from last year to 7,779 total listings, though that’s still 15% below where inventory was five years ago.
According to MarketWatch’s analysis, El Paso, Texas, was the county with the largest five-year decline in housing inventory for almost every month of last year. The number of homes available to buy in El Paso increased 70% in February 2023 compared to February 2022. Still, El Paso is the county with the third-largest decline in inventory in the last five years, down 58% (sitting behind Lake and DuPage counties.)
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