by Calculated Risk on 9/08/2025 08:11:00 AM
Altos reports that active single-family inventory was down 1.7% week-over-week. Inventory usually starts to decline in the fall, and then declines sharply during the holiday season.
Inventory is now up 35.6% from the seasonal bottom in January. Usually, inventory is up about 20.5% from the seasonal low by this week in the year. So, 2025 saw a larger than normal increase in inventory.
The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.
Click on graph for larger image.
The red line is for 2025. The black line is for 2019.
Inventory was up 20.4% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 22.4%), and down 10.6% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 10.3%).
Inventory started 2025 down 22% compared to 2019. Inventory has closed more than half of that gap, and it appears inventory will still be below 2019 levels at the end of 2025.
This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
As of September 5th, inventory was at 847 thousand (7-day average), compared to 861 thousand the prior week.
