Rural Area Housing Inventory Shortages Drive Overall Housing Market Crunch

According to Redfin, the Seattle-based nationwide real estate brokerage firm, the housing inventory crunch continues to grow in the new year and in all sectors of the market. Especially hard hit has been rural areas, where city dwellers currently seem to be drawn and which recently set a new record low for available inventory. In the four weeks ending on 1-21-21, year-over-year there was a 44% drop in inventory available in rural areas. That compares to a 38.4% drop in suburban areas and a 16.9% decrease in urban neighborhoods. Houses that do hit the market sell in record time. Houses in rural areas usually spent 39 days on the market last year. But now, those homes are selling 29 days faster. Homes in suburban areas are selling 22 days faster, compared to experiencing 30 days on the market last year. And homes in urban areas are selling 14 days faster—they spent an average of 36 days on the market last year. In prepared remarks Daryl Fairweather, Redfin Chief Economist said, “Buyers looking for homes in urban areas–where supply is down, but not by as much–will have more luck than buyers searching outside the city. Developers are focusing on creating new homes outside city centers, where there’s more room for sprawl, but that could mean the shortage in urban areas will worsen over time, with fewer homes being built.”