The gap between housing supply and demand grew to canyon-sized proportions in February as properties sold nearly immediately after being listed, according to Redfin.
Even as buyer activity slowed during the severe winter weather, a record 42.7% of homes sold in under seven days for the four-week period ending Feb. 21 compared to 30.7% the year before. Pending sales jumped 18% to 45,432 from the year-ago total of 38,430.
The dearth of inventory fueled the frenzied level of transactions. Active listings tumbled 40% year-over-year and reached a new all-time low of 497,909 from 835,149. Meanwhile, new listings also dropped 17% annually to 63,155 from 76,492.
This combination of factors drove median home sale prices up 15% annually to $321,250 from $278,400 and median asking prices up 11% to a new high of $343,961 from $309,937 the year prior.
"The housing market is now like a Soviet-era supermarket, with most of the shelves empty," Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in the report. “Migrations are warping the space-time continuum of small-town economies. The affordability crisis that flowed like some huge, unspent electrical charge from San Francisco to Seattle to Portland to Denver and to Boise is now reaching virtually every town in North America, bringing dazzling prosperity but also new anxieties."
The recent upward trajectory of mortgage rates may add pressure on borrowers to get in now before further rate growth occurs. Redfin’s homebuyer demand index — a market indicator based on requests for home tours and other services — spiked 35% year-over-year to 148 from 109. The index has a baseline score of 100.
