Housing market adds more inventory for the first time since 2019

Potential homebuyers may see relief as the housing market added more inventory year-over-year for the first time since September 2019.

The total listings went up by 3.5% from July 2021, according to Realtor.com data released August 9. A year in listings isn't enough to mitigate a years-long decline in inventory. Homebuyers struggled to find homes during this period while sellers reaped the benefits of exorbitant offers earlier this year, according to MarketWatch earlier this year.

In March, the total listings, which included active and pending listings, were down 41.5% from five years ago. The inventory is down 29% for the month of July, an improvement of more than 12 percentage points. Realtor.com aggregates data from the Multiple Listing Service platform used by industry practitioners across the country. The interactive shows how inventory and median home price have changed in your county. El Paso, Wake County, N.C. and Clark County, Nev. suffered the biggest drop in total listings from five years earlier in the month of March. While El Paso, TX has remained the county with the largest decline in inventory for all of 2022, Wake and Clark counties have dropped out of the top 10 - 10. The small-sized market ranking tends to be more volatile because they are more sensitive to changes in inventory. The top three spots in the small-sized market ranking held steady between June and July. All counties are located in the mountains of northwest North Carolina. In April, the counties with the largest drop in inventory from five years ago were Sawyer County, Wis. Chautauqua, N.Y. and multiple counties in Maine. People made their primary residence a vacation destination because of the trend of remote work. The three middle-sized markets with the biggest decline have stayed the same for the past three months, Watuga County, N.C., also in the North Carolina mountains — Virginia Beach, Va. and Chatham County, Ga. All counties or county equivalents in the top 10 are concentrated in East-Coast states.