According to Realtor.com, the number of homes on the market in January 2018 was only 6.2 million, compared to 14.3 million in January 2009.
This places current inventory at a low not seen since the early '60s, when the Census started collecting inventory data and the country’s population was half of what it is now. Inventory listed on Realtor.com alone was 18.2 percent lower in the first six months of 2018 than during the same period in 2015.
Realtor.com studied the country’s largest metros and found that some have been harder hit by housing shortages than others. Sacramento, Calif., for example, saw a 55 percent decrease in housing inventory between the first six months of 2015 and 2018. Charlotte, N.C., Indianapolis, Buffalo, N.Y., Detroit, and Minneapolis all also saw inventory decreases of more than 40 percent.
“Buyers have the least amount of options they’ve ever seen before," says Javier Vivas, director of economic research at Realtor.com. At the same time, "competition has virtually doubled over the past five years.”