In April, the Redfin Housing Demand Index fell 4.9 percent to 118, which marked the fifth consecutive month of year-over-ear declines. It was late stage demand that weakened, as there was a 6.7 percent year-over-year drop in the number of customers writing offers in April. However, early stage demand grew as the number of Redfin customers requesting tours rose 19.8 percent year-over-year.
Despite the fact that there were fewer buyers actually making offers on homes than in 2015, the continuously dwindling supply of homes continued to make the market extremely competitive. April saw 63 percent of offers from Redfin agents face bidding wars and another 29.6 percent of homes sold for more than their asking price. This was the highest level since August 2013.
Denver was the fastest market, taking just a median of five days for homes to go under contract. Portland and Seattle were not far behind. It took a typical home just one week to sell in both of these Pacific Northwest markets. Bidding wars do seem to be calming down a bit in May, as 59 percent of Redfin offers faced competition in the first half of the month.
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