Here Are the Cities With the Highest Inventory—and Those With the Lowest

The spring homebuying season is just around the corner, but a record low supply of homes for sale could pose a serious obstacle for new house hunters flooding the market. In January 2022, a total of just 408,922 listings made up the entire housing supply for a country of more than 332 million people, and inventory is still declining, Realtor.com reports.

January and February have historically kicked off a slow season for homebuying, but an unprecedented start to the 2022 market has seen an even more constrained supply as sellers are hesitant to list their homes and ultimately enter into an overcrowded pool of buyers. Inventory will likely remain tight throughout peak buying season, but some regions will see more availability than others. Heated markets like Rochester in upstate New York are reporting the fewest number of homes for sale, while Sunbelt cities like Myrtle Beach and Destin, Florida are seeing the most new home listings.

While economists predict more homes will come on the market this spring—how could they not?—most agree that inventory will remain extremely tight during the peak 2022 buying season. So where did all the homes go?

The inventory problems actually stretch all the way back to the last housing crisis: New home construction ground to a halt—and still hasn’t caught up to demand. Fast-forward more than decade, then factor in the huge number of millennials looking for their first homes, a glut of investors swooping in with all-cash offers, and the aftereffects of COVID-19 panic-buying, and you have a recipe for historic low inventory.

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