Advantages of Selling Your Home When Inventory Is Low

When it comes to selling your home, you're probably juggling the current market circumstances as well as your own demands as you plan your relocation.

The fact that there are so few properties for sale right now may work to your advantage. What you need to know about the present inventory situation and what it means for you is outlined below.

The Supply of Homes for Sale Is Far Below the Norm

When selling something, it helps if what you're selling is both in demand and in short supply. Why? Because there aren't enough to go around, it's much more coveted. That's exactly what's going on in the housing market right now. There are more purchasers wanting to buy than available properties.

Here's the most recent data on active listings, or homes for sale, to illustrate how low inventory is. The graph below compares the number of active listings in September of this year to what is more usual in the market using data from Realtor.com.

As you can see in the graph, if you look at the last normal years for the market (shown in the blue bars) versus the latest numbers for this year (shown in the red bar), it’s clear inventory is still far lower than the norm.

What That Means for You

Buyers now have fewer options than in previous years. As a result, if you sell now, you might still reap some significant benefits. Because there aren't enough properties to go around, homes that are priced correctly continue to sell quickly, and the average seller receives several offers from prospective purchasers. Based on the latest data from the Confidence Index from the National Association of Realtors (NAR):

• 69% of homes sold in less than a month.
• 2.6 offers: the average number of offers on recently sold homes.

An article from Realtor.com also explains how the limited number of houses for sale benefits you if you’re selling:

“. . . homes spent two weeks less on the market this past month than they did in the average September from 2017 to 2019 . . . as still-limited supply spurs homebuyers to act quickly . . .”

Bottom Line

Because the quantity of available houses for sale is so limited, buyers are clamoring for additional alternatives, and your property might be just what they're looking for. Let's get together to have your home listed at the correct price for today's market. You may still expect it to sell fast and receive numerous offers.