Number of homes for sale fall to new all-time low in December

Key housing market takeaways for 400+ U.S. metro areas during the 4-week period ending December 20:

The median home sale price increased 14% year over year to $320,714.

Pending home sales were up 34% year over year. In the single week ending December 20, pending sales were up 30% from the same week a year earlier.

New listings of homes for sale were up 12% from a year earlier.

Active listings (the number of homes listed for sale at any point during the period) fell 31% from 2019 to a new all-time low.

39% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market, well above the 26% rate during the same period a year ago.

The average sale-to-list price ratio, which measures how close homes are selling to their asking prices, declined slightly to 99.4%—still 1.5 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

For the week ending December 20, the seasonally adjusted Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of requests for home tours and other services from Redfin agents—was up 23% from pre-pandemic levels in January and February.

Mortgage purchase applications decreased 5% week over week(seasonally adjusted) and were up 26% from a year earlier (unadjusted) during the week ending December 18. For the week ending December 24, 30-year mortgage rates fell to 2.66%, another new all-time low. Rates have been below 3% since late July.