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10 states with the biggest housing market inventory shift
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When assessing home price momentum, ResiClub believes it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings could suggest a market that is heating up. Generally speaking, local housing markets where active inventory has jumped above pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced softer home price growth (or outright price declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, local housing markets where active inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. Where is inventory heading into summer? As ResiClub communicated to ResiClub PRO members in late 2023—and reaffirmed last fall—we expect national active inventory to approach pre-pandemic 2019 levels in the second half of 2025. That’s still the trajectory we’re on. National active listings are on the rise (+31.5% between May 2024 and May 2025). This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year. Some seller’s markets have turned into balanced markets, and more balanced markets have turned into buyer’s markets. Nationally, we’re still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels (-12.3% below May 2019), and some resale markets, in particular big chunks of the Midwest and Northeast, still remain tight-ish. May 2017: 1,253,854 May 2018: 1,156,910 May 2019: 1,180,920 May 2020: 928,370 May 2021: 447,662 (overheating during the Pandemic Housing Boom) May 2022: 479,462 May 2023: 582,441 May 2024: 787,722 May 2025: 1,036,101 If we maintain the current year-over-year pace of inventory growth (+248,379 homes for sale), we’d have: 1,284,480 active inventory come May 2026 1,532,859 active inventory come May 2027 Below is the year-over-year percentage change by state. While active housing inventory is rising in most markets on a year-over-year basis, some markets still remain tight-ish (although it’s loosening). As ResiClub has been documenting, both active resale and new homes for sale remain the most limited across huge swaths of the Midwest and Northeast. That’s where home sellers this spring had, relatively speaking, more power. In contrast, active housing inventory for sale has neared or surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels in many parts of the Sun Belt and Mountain West, including metro-area housing markets such as Punta Gorda, Florida, and Austin. Many of these areas saw major price surges during the pandemic housing boom, with home prices getting stretched in comparison with local incomes. As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa, Florida, and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives (if they have the margins to do so) to maintain sales in a shifted market, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. That puts additional upward pressure on resale inventory. At the end of May 2025, 10 states were above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. (The District of Columbia—which we left out of this analysis—is back above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels, too. Weakness in D.C. proper predates the current admin’s job cuts.) To better understand ongoing softness and weakness across Florida, read this ResiClub PRO report. Big picture: Over the past few years, we’ve observed a softening across many housing markets as strained affordability tempers the fervor of a market that was unsustainably hot during the pandemic housing boom. While home prices are falling in some areas around the Gulf, most regional housing markets are still seeing positive year-over-year home price growth. That said, given the current softening, ResiClub expects that as the year progresses, more markets will fall into the year-over-year decline camp. Below is another version of the table above—but this one includes every month since January 2017. (Sorry if it’s a little blurry—click the interactive link to see a version that isn’t blurry.) If you’d like to further examine the monthly state inventory figures, use the interactive below.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
When assessing home price momentum, ResiClub believes it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings could suggest a market that is heating up.
Generally speaking, local housing markets where active inventory has jumped above pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced softer home price growth (or outright price declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, local housing markets where active inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months.
Where is inventory heading into summer? As ResiClub communicated to ResiClub PRO members in late 2023—and reaffirmed last fall—we expect national active inventory to approach pre-pandemic 2019 levels in the second half of 2025. That’s still the trajectory we’re on.
National active listings are on the rise (+31.5% between May 2024 and May 2025). This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year. Some seller’s markets have turned into balanced markets, and more balanced markets have turned into buyer’s markets. Nationally, we’re still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels (-12.3% below May 2019), and some resale markets, in particular big chunks of the Midwest and Northeast, still remain tight-ish.
- May 2017: 1,253,854
- May 2018: 1,156,910
- May 2019: 1,180,920
- May 2020: 928,370
- May 2021: 447,662 (overheating during the Pandemic Housing Boom)
- May 2022: 479,462
- May 2023: 582,441
- May 2024: 787,722
- May 2025: 1,036,101
If we maintain the current year-over-year pace of inventory growth (+248,379 homes for sale), we’d have:
- 1,284,480 active inventory come May 2026
- 1,532,859 active inventory come May 2027
Below is the year-over-year percentage change by state.
While active housing inventory is rising in most markets on a year-over-year basis, some markets still remain tight-ish (although it’s loosening).
As ResiClub has been documenting, both active resale and new homes for sale remain the most limited across huge swaths of the Midwest and Northeast. That’s where home sellers this spring had, relatively speaking, more power.
In contrast, active housing inventory for sale has neared or surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels in many parts of the Sun Belt and Mountain West, including metro-area housing markets such as Punta Gorda, Florida, and Austin. Many of these areas saw major price surges during the pandemic housing boom, with home prices getting stretched in comparison with local incomes.
As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa, Florida, and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives (if they have the margins to do so) to maintain sales in a shifted market, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. That puts additional upward pressure on resale inventory.
At the end of May 2025, 10 states were above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. (The District of Columbia—which we left out of this analysis—is back above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels, too. Weakness in D.C. proper predates the current admin’s job cuts.)
To better understand ongoing softness and weakness across Florida, read this ResiClub PRO report.
Big picture: Over the past few years, we’ve observed a softening across many housing markets as strained affordability tempers the fervor of a market that was unsustainably hot during the pandemic housing boom.
While home prices are falling in some areas around the Gulf, most regional housing markets are still seeing positive year-over-year home price growth. That said, given the current softening, ResiClub expects that as the year progresses, more markets will fall into the year-over-year decline camp.
Below is another version of the table above—but this one includes every month since January 2017. (Sorry if it’s a little blurry—click the interactive link to see a version that isn’t blurry.)
If you’d like to further examine the monthly state inventory figures, use the interactive below.
