Redfin recently reported that their Housing Demand Index declined 7.3% in November to seasonally-adjusted level of 94. In November, 7.6% fewer buyers went on tours compared with October, and 8% fewer wrote offers. Compared to November 2015, there were 10.2% fewer homes on the market. This marks the eighteenth consecutive month of year-over-year declines in homes for sale, leading to a shrinking pool potential homes for buyers to search. The Redfin Housing Demand Index is based on thousands of Redfin customers requesting home tours and writing offers.
“Buyers and sellers had a lot to digest in November, including an election, higher home prices and an increase in 30-year mortgage rates that rose from 3.5 percent at the beginning of the month to 4 percent at the end,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “Nationally, new listings were at a standstill, as sellers paused to assess market timing. It took about a month longer for a typical buyer to search for a home and make a successful offer in November than it did for a newly listed home to go under contract. This is the widest margin between time to buy and time to sell that we’ve seen.”
