What spring selling season?
Newly listed homes dropped 44.1 percent in April, according to realtor.com’s Monthly Housing Trends Report released Tuesday. That amounts to a loss of 189,000 listings compared to April 2019.
“The good momentum we saw at the start of the year has helped to somewhat insulate the housing market from the coronavirus’ negative impact on buyer and seller confidence across the U.S. Although we saw sharp drops in new listings, an increase in the time it takes to sell a home and a flattening of prices in April, May is likely to see some of these metrics worsen,” realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale said.
The report also found:
- The Northeast saw the greatest decline in new listings at 59.4 percent, followed by declines of 49.5 percent in the Midwest, 44.1 percent in the West and 31.4 percent in the South.
- The median listing price grew 0.6 percent year-over-year to $320,000. However, this was notably slower than March’s price growth rate of 3.8 percent.
- For the week ending on April 25, homes spent an average of nine days longer on the market than the same week last year.
“Just how significantly the housing market is impacted by the pandemic will depend on how effective the country is at containing the virus and how the economy responds,” Hale said. “If all goes well, we could see buyers returning to the market aggressively this summer to make up for the spring they lost.”