Housing Market Supply Is Keeping Prices From Crashing

Source: Newsweek — 

Housing inventory in the U.S. decreased between October and November this year, underscoring a housing shortage that some experts believe is helping to keep soaring prices from dramatically plummeting.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced Wednesday that total housing inventory at the end of November was 1.14 million units. This was down 6.6 percent from October but up 2.7 percent from a year ago, when there were 1.11 million units.

“Unsold inventory sits at a 3.3-month supply at the current sales pace, which was identical to October, but up from 2.1 months in November 2021,” the group said in a release.

The potential, or lack thereof, for the U.S. housing market to crash has become a major point of discussion in recent months in light of elevated mortgage rates, soaring housing prices and inflation. Experts have repeatedly cited housing supply in the U.S. as a major difference between the current market and the market during the 2008 housing crash.

Back then, there was an oversupply, but this is not the case today. A Freddie Mac report released in May 2021 found that as of the fourth quarter of 2020, the U.S. had a housing supply deficit of 3.8 million units.