Whats Up With Inventory?

What's up with inventory is the numbers themselves. The Austin metro is currently at 5.4 months of inventory, putting the area as whole into a solid neutral market. That’s quite a shift from earlier this year. The chart below shows the difference in these numbers from mid-Jan to mid-march, (just two months) for each of the 30 cities in the area. There are still a few cities like Cedar Park, Manor and Round Rock with levels of active listings that make them more favorable for sellers. Months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell all the inventory if no other properties came on to the market. The type of market is defined as:

Less than 4.9 mos = sellers market;  5.0-6.9 mos = neutral market;  7.00 + mos = buyers market. The chart will show which cities fall into which type of market.

Being in the midst of our selling season more properties are entering the market and will continue until about June when we'll start to see a decline number of properties being listed. However, demand throughout the region has been dropping, causing inventory levels to increase. So buyer demand will be key.

Inventory levels also differ based on price range as the charts below indicate. The under $500k price ranges tend to be ones that are considered more affordable and sought after, thus they tend to have less inventory available than those in the $500k plus ranges.

What does this mean for us going forward? It's likely that interest rates will remain in the 6-7% range. We've seen over 46% of active listings have price decreases. If inventory continues to build, it's likely to put more downward pressure on prices, especially in areas with seven or more months of inventory.

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