Limited Construction, Low Inventory Expected to Continue in 2018

In a new survey predicting home price trends in 2018, only 6.3 percent of respondents expect low inventory levels to change significantly, and just 16.7 percent say low levels of building activity are likely to change.

Panelists for Zillow's latest survey said they expect home values to end this year up 5.6 percent from the end of 2016, and end 2018 up 4.13 percent from the end of this year, on average. In October 2017, median U.S. home values were up 6.5 percent year-over-year.

Persistently low inventory of homes for sale, and low levels of single-family home building activity in particular, proved the most surprising housing trends to a majority of experts in 2017 – and they say neither is particularly likely to reverse course in 2018, nor is homeownership expected to rise much.

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