New Listings and Sales Down, Home Price Growth Slows

Redfin has dubbed their March Market Tracker report as “possibly the most unusual ever.” February’s statistics marked eight straight months of growth. By mid-March, everything had changed. Listings dropped, sales plummeted, the average home price growth began its slowdown, and that was just the start: The Redfin’s Market Tracker report for March still has not captured the full effect of the coronavirus on the housing market yet. Read the full report to get market-by-market breakdowns for prices, inventory, new listings and sales for markets with populations of 750,000 or more.

This is possibly the most unusual Market Tracker report that Redfin has ever published. At the beginning of March, the housing market was stronger than ever, with February marking the eighth straight month of increases in home sales, and the U.S. economy was relatively stable. By the end of March, that run had come to an end and everything had been thrown into extreme disarray as the spread of the coronavirus turned the housing market upside down. Therefore, the picture we get by looking at the entire month as a whole will understate the stalled condition of the market as we headed into April.

Buyers and sellers both retreated as the U.S. coronavirus crisis turned into a national emergency in March. Home sales slipped and the number of homes listed for sale plunged, although the U.S. median home sale price continued to increase, gaining 7.1% year over year and 3.3% month over month to $303,200.

When trying to understand the apparent strength of home prices in March it is important to remember that most of the homes sold during the month actually went under contract in February, before the coronavirus began to shut down the U.S. economy.

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