Dive Brief:
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Real estate listing website Redfin’s Housing Demand Index jumped 13.3% from August to September and posted a reading of 105 for the month. The Index is up nearly 4% from the year-ago period.
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The seasonally adjusted figure represents the greatest demand since June 2013.
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Boston led the 13 metro areas tracked by the Index during September at a score of 129, with Denver, Oakland, CA, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, DC, all scoring above 100 for the month.
Dive Insight:
Redfin Chief Economist Nela Richardson attributed the bump in demand to a post-Labor Day batch of new home listings bringing potential buyers into the already-tight housing market. There were 3.3% more listings on the market in September than there were a year ago, but the rate of sales requires current inventory to loosen, Richardson said.
Whether that will happen soon is still to be determined. Single-family home sales climbed 3.1% from August to September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 593,000 sales, up 29.8% from September 2015, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Meanwhile, inventory tightened to a 4.8-month supply of new homes in September from 5.8 months a year ago. Real estate listing website Zillow reported earlier this month that homebuyers are taking 4.2 months, on average, to find a home.
First-time homebuyers are coming back on the market after the group bought in fewer numbers following the recession. According to the National Association of Realtors, first-time buyers took a 34% share of existing-home sales in September — its largest in four years — driving that category’s growth last month and indicating that pent up demand for homes could be slowly letting loose.