The median U.S. list price fell 0.9% in June, while the number of active listings rose by 7% year-over-year, according to Realtor.com’s June Housing Report, but affordability challenges are still causing would-be buyers to think twice about home purchases. Though the share of for-sale listings is rising, there are still half as many homes on the market as there were pre-pandemic in 2019, according to The New York Times. Pair that inventory shortage with still-rising mortgage rates and you get a rampant affordability crisis that’s keeping buyers glued to the sidelines.
Still, a few metro areas are seeing more significant home-price declines, particularly in popular Western markets. Texas metros such as Austin and Houston, for example, saw prices fall year-over-year by 6.8% and 5.1%, respectively, in June 2023.
Although the report showed that the number of active listings rose by 7 percent over a year, there are still half as many homes on the market as in prepandemic 2019. There are also 26 percent fewer new listings this June than there were last June (a slight improvement over June 2022, which had 29 percent fewer than June 2021).
The dearth of listings is easily explained: There’s little incentive to sell. After all, sellers face the same high prices and interest rates when they go looking for their next home, and buyers are harder to come by at these rates.