Housing Market Update: First New-Listings Decline in 5 Months Portends a 2021 Housing Frenzy to Rival 2020

New listings fell 3%, the first annual decline since July even as pending sales were up 35%.

Key housing market takeaways for 400+ U.S. metro areas during the 4-week period ending January 10:

• The median home sale price increased 14% year over year to $320,025.
• Pending home sales were up 35% year over year.
• New listings of homes for sale were down 3% from a year earlier—the first decline since July.
• Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 33% from 2020 to a new all-time low.
• 38% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market, well above the 27% rate during the same period a year ago.
• The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, declined slightly to 99.3%—still 1.5 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
• For the week ending January 10, the seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of requests for home tours and other services from Redfin agents—was up 40% from pre-pandemic levels in January and February of 2020.
• Mortgage purchase applications increased 8% week over week (seasonally-adjusted) and were up 10% from a year earlier (unadjusted) during the week ending January 8. For the week ending January 14, 30-year mortgage rates edged up to 2.79%.

“Buyers are likely disappointed by the lack of new homes listed in the past month,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “But that’s not stopping them from making offers on what is on the market, which is sending pending sales up. It’s looking like 2021 will see a housing market frenzy that will rival what we experienced in 2020.”