Housing Market Update: Homebuyers Face Record Supply Shortage Heading into 2022

Housing Market Update: Homebuyers Face Record Supply Shortage Heading into 2022

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Updated on October 26th, 2022

Home prices were up 14% and pending sales rose 4% from a year earlier despite a record low number of homes for sale.

The housing market started off the new year with fewer homes for sale than ever before, as active listings fell 27% from a year earlier. The number of newly-listed homes for sale fell 10%, but anecdotes from Redfin agents suggest that listings may soon begin to pick up.

“We’re kicking off yet another year with a whole lot of buyers whose home search has been ongoing for months, and they are as eager as ever,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “This month, the stage will be set for the 2022 housing market, and we’ll be closely watching whether prices climb like they usually do in January or whether they start off high and stagnate due to rising mortgage rates. We’re also keeping a close eye on new listings. I’ve already been hearing from Redfin agents in extremely supply-constrained markets like Austin that they are getting more interest than usual from homeowners about selling early this year. A lot of these people spent the last couple months getting their homes spruced up and ready to list. This gives me hope that more sellers will be motivated to take action now that the new year has arrived.”

Key housing market takeaways for 400+ U.S. metro areas:

Unless otherwise noted, the data in this report covers the four-week period ending January 2. Redfin’s housing market data goes back through 2012.

Data based on homes listed and/or sold during the period:

  • The median home-sale price increased 14% year over year to $358,460, just shy of an all-time high.
  • The median asking price of newly listed homes increased 12% year over year to $341,200.
  • Pending home sales were up 3.5% year over year.
  • New listings of homes for sale were down 10% from a year earlier.
  • Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 27% year over year, dropping below 500,000 for the first time to an all-time low of 482,000.
  • The share of homes that went under contract that had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market was 40%, above the 35% rate of a year earlier.
  • 29% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within one week of hitting the market, up from 25% during the same period a year earlier.
  • Homes that sold were on the market for a median of 27 days, down from 34 days a year earlier.
  • 41% of homes sold above list price, up from 33% a year earlier.
  • On average, 2.4% of homes for sale each week had a price drop, up 0.5 percentage points from the same time in 2021.
  • The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, was 100.3%. In other words, the average home sold for 0.3% above its asking price.

Other leading indicators of homebuying activity:

  • Mortgage purchase applications decreased 4% week over week (seasonally adjusted) during the week ending December 31. For the week ending January 6, 30-year mortgage rates rose to 3.22%, the highest level since May 2020.
  • The Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index rose 7% during the week ending January 2 and was up 18% from a year earlier. The seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index is a measure of requests for home tours and other home-buying services from Redfin agents.

Refer to our metrics definition page for explanations of all the metrics used in this report.

Median Price

Asking Price

Pending Sales

New Listings

Active Listings

Sold in 2 Weeks

Sold in 1 Week

Days on Market

Sold Above List

Price Drops

Sale-to-List

Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index

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Tim Ellis

Tim Ellis has been analyzing the real estate market since 2005, and worked at Redfin as a housing market analyst from 2010 through 2013 and again starting in 2018. In his free time, he runs the independently-operated Seattle-area real estate website Seattle Bubble, and produces the "Dispatches from the Multiverse" improvised comedy sci-fi podcast.

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