The Inventory of Existing Homes on the Market Drops Below 1,000,000 Units
- The inventory of existing homes for sale at the end of December fell to an all-time low of 910,000 units. That’s down 14.2% from a year earlier.
- Existing home sales in December fell 4.6% from November to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 6.18 million units.
- At December’s sales pace, the months’ supply figure stands at 1.8 months. That is, at the current sales rate, it would take 1.8 months to sell all the existing homes currently on the market. The months’ supply figure during 2015-19 averaged 4.2 months.
- Of the existing homes sold in December, 79% were on the market for less than one month, with the typical home on the market for 19 days.
- Existing home sales for 2021 came in at 6.12 million units, an 8.5% increase over 2020’s annual sales and the highest annual sales figure since 2006.
While Mortgage Rates Cross Over 3.5%
- The average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages in Freddie Mac’s survey was 3.56% during the week ending January 20, up 11 basis points from the previous week. Three weeks ago, at the end of December, the average stood at 3.11%.
- The rate averaged 3.10% in December, following an average of 3.07% in both October and November. All rates quoted have fees and points averaging 0.6% to 0.7% of the loan amount.
