More homes sold in late July despite very low inventory

Despite closures, lockdowns, and the continuing pandemic more homes went under contract for the week ending July 18 than the week prior, and the housing market kept up its fast pace, according to Zillow’s Weekly Market Reportⁱ.

Homes that sold the same week were on the market for just more than two weeks, tying a record pace in Zillow data that dates to 2019, according to a Zillow news release.

Newly pending sales return to strong weekly growth

After falling week-over-week in the past four Weekly Market Reports, newly pending sales rose 10.9% this time around. They remain 2.4% below the previous month.
Even with this increased volume, homes continued to fly off the market quickly. Homes that were sold last week typically went under contract after just 15 daysⁱⁱ, same as the previous week and eight days faster than last year.

With sales strong and no uptick in new listings, inventory falls to a new record low

New for-sale listings dropped 0.2% from the previous week, and are now down 14.6% year over year.
For-sale inventory continues to fall, down 0.9% week over week, and 3.3% from the previous month. The uptick in sales pushed total inventory down more than new listings the week of July 20.
There are now 25.5% fewer homes on the market than this time last year.

Prices continue to rise

In the first week of June, the median sale price was $262,600, up 1% year over year.
As of last week, the median list price was up 5.3% higher than a year earlier, now at $341,640.
With demand strong, only 4.2% of listings had cut their price. That’s 1.3 percentage points lower than the same week a year ago.

Virtual home buying and selling is growing in popularity

Americans say they are more likely to buy or sell a home virtually, and virtual tours have become more popular during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new Zillow surveyⁱⁱⁱ.
More than a third of Americans (36%) say they are more likely to try to buy a home entirely online during the coronavirus pandemic, and 30% say after the current outbreak ends, they would do the same.
During the pandemic, 43% say they are more likely to try to sell a home entirely online. When the current outbreak ends, 33% anticipate they would still be more likely to try and sell a home entirely online.

Metropolitan Area*	Newly Pending Sales – MoM	Newly Pending Sales – WoW	Median Days to Pending**	New For-Sale Listings – YoY	New For-Sale Listings – WoW	Total For-Sale Listings – YoY	Median Sale Price***	Median Sale Price – YoY***
United States	-2.4%	10.9%	15	-14.6%	-0.2%	-25.5%	$262,600	1.0%
New York, NY	14.1%	1.4%	28	2.3%	-5.8%	-22.2%	$428,540	4.4%
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA	6.5%	10.5%	14	-10.1%	0.5%	-27.1%	$658,150	1.1%
Chicago, IL	-3.9%	14.9%	14	-3.4%	-6.9%	-24.2%	$249,100	0.5%
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX	-4.8%	6.2%	24	-18.7%	-3.2%	-21.4%	$280,539	-0.2%
Philadelphia, PA	0.3%	13.9%	10	-13.6%	-0.5%	-35.0%	$259,360	3.6%
Houston, TX	-5.8%	9.2%	19	-14.8%	9.2%	-20.5%	$247,785	-0.1%
Washington, DC	-0.9%	15.5%	8	-15.6%	-1.5%	-34.2%	$428,260	1.4%
Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL	-5.2%	3.0%	33	-11.9%	-3.4%	-10.6%	$311,540	8.2%
Atlanta, GA	-2.7%	-2.5%	17	-16.2%	3.9%	-15.4%	$261,069	0.8%
Boston, MA	-5.6%	40.3%	9	-6.8%	-3.7%	-24.5%	$496,240	4.3%
San Francisco, CA	-2.1%	6.7%	12	-0.8%	1.4%	-10.0%	$840,500	-2.0%
Detroit, MI	5.1%	23.3%	9	-15.5%	-1.1%	-27.6%	$201,790	-0.1%
Riverside, CA	-2.3%	-0.3%	13	-16.5%	7.8%	-39.9%	$386,350	3.0%
Phoenix, AZ	-10.2%	6.8%	16	-1.1%	8.2%	-27.8%	$300,750	3.1%
Seattle, WA	5.7%	19.5%	6	-15.8%	2.6%	-38.6%	$506,247	-0.7%
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN	3.3%	6.5%	18	-5.0%	-9.3%	-22.6%	$294,625	4.7%
San Diego, CA	N/A	N/A	9	-10.7%	-1.2%	-36.6%	$598,400	2.9%
St. Louis, MO	1.1%	16.1%	7	-14.5%	-0.6%	-28.4%	$203,672	3.1%
Tampa, FL	N/A	N/A	12	-10.9%	-1.1%	N/A	$243,749	7.7%
Baltimore, MD	-2.6%	12.1%	12	-21.1%	1.2%	-41.0%	$303,858	-0.2%
Denver, CO	-4.2%	30.8%	7	6.8%	0.2%	-24.8%	$437,580	1.2%
Pittsburgh, PA	N/A	N/A	8	8.6%	2.0%	-25.3%	$183,980	1.6%
Portland, OR	-1.7%	23.7%	7	-25.9%	-2.7%	-28.7%	$415,500	1.4%
Charlotte, NC	-8.4%	0.4%	7	-23.9%	10.8%	-36.0%	$261,000	-1.2%
Sacramento, CA	1.2%	6.1%	9	-17.0%	5.0%	-30.5%	$432,750	2.1%
San Antonio, TX	N/A	N/A	29	-28.7%	-5.9%	-18.3%	$244,260	3.1%
Orlando, FL	N/A	N/A	13	-9.8%	-3.7%	-15.2%	$268,980	5.0%
Cincinnati, OH	-1.7%	6.5%	4	-14.0%	-2.0%	-34.1%	$199,720	7.0%
Cleveland, OH	4.7%	5.2%	16	-18.6%	2.3%	-36.5%	$165,080	3.5%
Kansas City, MO	-0.8%	18.8%	5	-21.4%	0.4%	-36.4%	$243,773	3.7%
Las Vegas, NV	-5.7%	-6.9%	22	-13.3%	5.1%	-26.1%	$302,894	2.0%
Columbus, OH	-4.0%	11.4%	4	-18.9%	-3.3%	-32.7%	$223,770	2.9%
Indianapolis, IN	-9.2%	10.5%	5	-19.7%	-4.0%	-34.2%	$212,756	8.9%
San Jose, CA	2.8%	7.6%	19	9.3%	6.3%	-26.8%	$1,134,580	2.7%
Austin, TX	-18.6%	-2.3%	8	-21.4%	-0.5%	-24.3%	$338,935	1.4%
Virginia Beach, VA	N/A	N/A	40	2.2%	-5.5%	-34.4%	$265,900	2.2%
Nashville, TN	N/A	N/A	33	-21.9%	-8.8%	-9.9%	$304,578	0.7%
Providence, RI	-0.3%	22.7%	14	-11.2%	12.7%	-32.1%	$306,700	3.7%
Milwaukee, WI	N/A	N/A	30	-26.9%	-3.6%	-11.7%	$246,180	4.8%
Jacksonville, FL	-8.2%	11.5%	17	-15.1%	5.2%	-27.2%	$256,068	2.6%
Memphis, TN	N/A	N/A	5	-9.8%	7.3%	-35.0%	$204,200	4.0%
Oklahoma City, OK	N/A	N/A	9	-12.4%	6.7%	-25.9%	$193,990	3.5%
Louisville, KY	-7.1%	13.8%	7	-25.7%	-2.4%	-36.2%	$201,730	2.1%
Hartford, CT	-3.6%	1.7%	9	-6.2%	9.5%	-38.7%	$237,500	2.3%
Richmond, VA	N/A	N/A	6	-22.4%	-2.0%	-28.7%	$276,000	6.7%
New Orleans, LA	-5.6%	2.3%	18	-9.6%	9.4%	-33.2%	$221,264	6.6%
Buffalo, NY	-12.1%	12.9%	9	-1.8%	16.1%	-29.0%	$173,119	5.4%
Raleigh, NC	-3.3%	21.0%	5	-4.6%	5.4%	-31.5%	$298,790	1.7%
Birmingham, AL	17.9%	18.1%	9	-6.6%	8.3%	-29.9%	$219,348	-0.5%
Salt Lake City, UT	-2.5%	19.4%	8	-35.7%	-4.9%	-35.7%	$356,180	4.1%
*Table ordered by market size
**The Days to Pending metric has been restated as of this week’s report, generally producing lower values
***Sales price data as of the week ending June 6

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ⁱ The Zillow Weekly Market Reports are a weekly overview of the national and local real estate markets. The reports are compiled by Zillow Economic Research and data is aggregated from public sources and listing data on Zillow.com. Newly pending sales and new for-sale listings data reflect daily counts using a smoothed, seven-day trailing average. Total for-sale listings, days to pending, and median list price data reflect weekly counts using a smoothed, four-week trailing average. For more information, visit www.zillow.com/research/.

ⁱⁱ Due to a methodology improvement, the Days to Pending time series has been restated. Generally, the restatement produced lower numbers (i.e., homes were sold faster) than previously reported.

ⁱⁱⁱ Data was collected by Zillow Group Population Science from a survey of 2,600 U.S. adults recruited and interviewed between May 11th, 2020, and May 15th, 2020. Respondents were recruited from multiple general population internet respondent panels of U.S. adults from the contiguous United States. To promote the representativeness of the estimates, the sample data was weighted to align with key U.S. Census demographic benchmarks observed in the target population.

Source: Zillow