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"Dude, where's my inventory," asks Bill McBride, as the imminent start of the spring selling...

  • Monday, March 4, 3:49 PM ET
    "Dude, where's my inventory," asks Bill McBride, as the imminent start of the spring selling season has yet to bring much product forward. Inventory is up just 3.4% thus far this year, and stands 23.2% below a year ago. If the rest of March doesn't bring substantial gains then razor-thin inventories may not be done bottoming.
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This news story has 10 comments:

  •  
    who is bill mcbride?
    4 Mar, 03:53 PM Reply Like
  •  
    One of the best businessweb sites on the internet,,,Calculated Risk,,,
    plus Bill is a good guy....
    4 Mar, 05:46 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Quickly! There's no time!

    (Go buy a house [or xyz] before it's too late...sound familiar?)
    4 Mar, 04:16 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Sellers are all on the sidelines because the media announces the resurgence of real estate daily. Why would you sell your house now if you believe that prices will be substantially higher in 6 months or a year? What will eventually happen is that sellers will realize prices are actually not going up as fast as they thought, and that all the inflated improvement numbers from last year were based on cash buyers buying up homes for rental. Once they realize that prices are not actually skyrocketing, they will come back to the market and inventory will go back up.
    4 Mar, 04:35 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Don't forget the collusion between NAR, agents, banks (with shadow inventory) to "manage" supply.
    4 Mar, 04:38 PM Reply Like
  •  
    "Collusion"....just like "conspiracy", "illuminati", "aliens"......

    Just words made to hide their utter incompetence in investing their money.

    The people that use these terms 99% of the time are broke.....
    4 Mar, 06:51 PM Reply Like
  •  
    "Collusion"? Spoken like a true feeb! Get to know a Real Estate Broker before you run your gob.
    4 Mar, 06:14 PM Reply Like
  •  
    The independent foreclosure reviews are winding down at the big servicers. The large servicers had significantly slowed down putting REO's on the market. As we get into summer inventory will become lesser of an issue as the servicers start offloading.
    4 Mar, 07:41 PM Reply Like
  •  
    People looking at values and target prices use a few typical yardsticks in this market:

    1 - Monthly payment: how does it compare to rent equivalent?
    2 - What was the last top?

    Then they calculate what they can afford (yardstick #1), go shopping and, due to dismal inventory, come back and revise their expectations. Looking back to the 2007 top, they figure it's still cheaper and just give up.

    Some local markets are overheating, like most of coastal CA and especially the Bay Area.

    SF, like Palo Alto and other techies magnets, have gone back or exceeded their 2007 top. This in turn creates a wave of increases all around
    4 Mar, 10:19 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Ask any homeowner whose tried to sell a home in this country the last 5 or 7 yrs how that experience turned out for them.Between all the distressed homes banks are holding on to, the 25% or so of mtgs underwater and tight credit just not that much inventory out there or credit to buy a home. JPM is laying off 19,000 people from their mortgage division by the end of 2014. ALL you need to know how JPM sees the housing recovery going forward
    5 Mar, 02:56 AM Reply Like
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