More than three out of every five homes on the market in May went “stale” — that is, they had been listed for at least 30 days without going under contract, according to Redfin.
Some 61.9% of listings during May stayed on the market for a month, inching up from 60% in May last year and from about 50% two years prior, per Redfin’s data. It’s the third consecutive month that the share of homes sitting on the market for at least 30 days has grown.
In fact, 40.1% of homes on the market in May had been listed for at least two months without going under contract. That’s unchanged from one year ago, but up from 27.8% two years prior. The share of homes listed for at least 60 days has now been essentially flat on an annual basis for two straight months; before that, the share had been dropping on a year-over-year basis since September.
Listed homes are going stale because while inventory is improving, the affordability crunch is leaving buyer activity tepid. Redfin reported in March that new listings were up 13% year over year, the largest annual jump in almost three years. But mortgage interest rates, according to Freddie Mac, began rising in the middle of that month, climbing above 7% in May before trending downward again only recently. Couple that with home prices that are still elevated, and you’ve got a market restrained by sidelined buyers despite pent-up demand.
Anecdotal reports from the real estate company’s agents note that while move-in ready homes in desirable neighborhoods are rapidly finding buyers, listings that “don’t fit the bill” are accruing in some parts of the United States. Those areas include the Sun Belt, where rapidly rising supply is leaving less desirable listings to rack up.
Consider Texas and Florida, which are leading the country in homes being built; it’s not surprising, then, that the share of inventory sitting on the market for at least a month is growing fastest in Dallas, where more than 60% of listings had stayed there for at least 30 days, up from 53% last year. Next atop the ranking are three Florida cities: Fort Lauderdale (75.5%, up from 68.2%), Tampa (68.7%, up from 61.9%) and Jacksonville (69.2%, up from 62.9%).
