Buyers Lower Expectations After Third Straight Quarter of Low Housing Inventory

With a scarcity of homes for sale in the third quarter of 2021, fewer buyers are expecting to find a home with current market availability, reports the NAHB’s Eye on Housing.

The drop in perceptions of availability comes after a period of increased home buying in the final quarter of 2020 and reflects the subsequent decrease in home sales throughout 2021.

Expectations that housing availability will ease up declined in all four regions of the country between the final quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2021. In the Northeast, the share of buyers expecting the house search to get easier dropped from 44% to 29%; in the Midwest, from 23% to 16%; in the South, from 32% to 22%; and in the West, from 40% to 35%. From the second to third quarter of 2021, however, perceptions of availability did improve in the West.

Another way to assess buyers’ perceptions on inventory is to ask whether they are seeing more/fewer/about the same number of homes (that they like and can afford) available on the market. Results to this question further confirm a decline in buyer’s perceptions of housing availability.

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