Buyers vie for fewer homes as listings decline

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hoping to buy a home that fits your needs and budget in the next few weeks? You might want to settle in for a long search.

The inventory of homes for sale nationally dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades last month. And a snapshot of this month so far isn’t encouraging, with the number of homes on the market running well below year-ago levels.

While fewer homeowners typically list their homes in the winter months, the ultra-low level of properties on the market now makes landing a home more challenging at a time when the housing market continues to favor sellers over buyers.

“Extraordinarily few homes (are) on the market, and that means home shoppers will really notice fewer options when they go house hunting,” said Jeff Tucker senior economist at Zillow. “And it means there’s more competition over the homes that do get listed.”

Coming off the best year for home sales since 2006, the height of the last housing bubble, the number of U.S. homes for sale stood last month at just 910,000, the fewest on records going back to 1999, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The holiday season, colder weather and surging coronavirus cases may have given some sellers reason to put off listing their homes last month. Another factor is simply that homes have been getting snapped up so quickly, often within days of hitting the market, that there are fewer listings that carry over from one month to the next.

Consider that in December 2019, before the pandemic, there were 40.5% more homes on the market than last month, according to Zillow.

Sellers haven’t been in a hurry to list their homes in the new year. New listings are down 10.1% so far this month compared to this time last year, while “active” listings overall are down 28.6%,...