According to realtor.com®’s weekly Housing Recovery Index, which recently hit 101.0 points, the markets have surpassed the pre-COVID recovery benchmark. This week’s index rating is 2.5 percent over last week’s. While the pace of sales has caught up to pre-COVID levels, there’s still an inventory crunch while the markets wait for additional sellers to list their homes.
Here’s the market breakdown for the week ending July 18:
New Listings: -15 percent YoY
Median Listing Prices: +9.1 YoY
Total Listings: -33 percent YoY
Days on Market: 1 day faster YoY
On a regional basis, the Northeast Index marked 106.3, overtaking all regions in recovery. The West posted an index rating of 105.5 while the South and Midwest trail behind at 97.9 and 97.3.
“There is no blueprint for a pandemic-induced recession, but this recovery milestone is further proof that homebuyers will persevere through the biggest of storms,” said Javier Vivas, director of economic research for realtor.com®. “Housing remains a must-have during COVID times, and home sales have proven to flourish even under record low levels of supply. The spring season disruptions have given an artificial boost to the summer home-buying season; the real question will be whether the market will be able to sustain that pace through the rest of the summer and going into the fall.”
The Weekly Housing Index leverages a weighted average of realtor.com® search traffic, median list prices, new listings and median time on market, and compares it to the January 2020 market trend, as a baseline for pre-COVID market growth. The overall index is set to 100 in this baseline period. The higher a market’s index value, the higher its recovery and vice versa.
Source: realtor.com®