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58 | M REPORT O R I G I NAT I O N S E R V I C I N G DATA G O V E R N M E N T S E C O N DA R Y M A R K E T THE LATEST DATA Report: Housing Inventory and Prices Down in October While prices cooled, those seeking an affordable house were hard-pressed to find anything within their budget. W eary homeseekers aren't going to see any relief soon as the latest Market Pulse report from HouseCanary, a real estate valuation broker- age whose team of economists regularly researches and reports industry trends, found that in- ventory levels dropped again last month to near record low levels. HouseCanary predicts that this negative movement will continue as we move into the holiday season and likely extend into next year. "As we head into the holi- day season, it seems the supply trends we have seen over the past few months are beginning to change course," said Jeremy Sicklick, the Co-Founder and CEO of HouseCanary. "Despite initial signs that the nationwide supply crunch was beginning to alleviate, October saw net new inventory levels drop once again across every price segment to the lowest number we've seen almost all year. This negative movement will likely extend the length of the ongoing shortage of homes well into 2022, which could lead to more of the kinds of rapid price growth in the spring that characterized 2021. Currently, we are seeing that median listing and closed prices are still hover- ing near record highs, although we expect them to cool slightly as winter approaches and there's less of an appetite for home purchases during the winter months." Breaking down the report, there have been 3,203,149 net new listings placed on the market in the last year—that represents an 8% increase over the same period in 2020. When broken down into price ranges, 17.6% of the 3.2 million listings were listed under $200,000; 41.4% of listings were priced between $200,000– $400,000; 21.1% were between $400,000–$600,000; 13.5% were between $600,000–$1,000,000; and 6.7% were listed above $1 million. It should not be surprising that as home prices trend upward, list- ings of cheaper homes also drops off. Over the last year, home listings in the $0-$200,000 segment have dropped by 18.1% and homes in the $200,00–$400,000 decreased by 0.8% while homes in the other segments have increased. The percent of listed homes in the $400,000-$600,000 range rose by 31.2%, while homes in the $600,000-$1M and $1M+ rose by 48.3% and 48.9% respectively. Looking at monthly data, there were 354,132 listings that went un- der contract in October nationally which represents a 1.3% year-over- year increase for the month. In October, the median price of all single-family listings in the United States was $384,136 and the median closed price was $386,201. On a year-over-year basis, the median price of all single-family listings is up 7.6% and the median price of closed listings is up 13.9%. However, the median home price has dropped 0.8% since September while the median closed price increased by 2.0%.