With one week of January under our belt, we still see the hangover of the New Year’s weekend in the housing data, and available inventory of homes for sale declined last week. There were 40% fewer homes on the market now than when we started 2020 pre-pandemic. 

The real signal for the full spring and — therefore for the whole year — comes between the second and third week of January. Stay tuned for the next few weeks, and we’ll watch whether buyers are just looking or ready to take action. But there are already some surprising data points sneaking it to the earliest measures of the new year.

Every week of course Altos Research tracks every home for sale in the country. We analyze all the pricing, supply and demand, and all the changes in that data and we make it available to you before you see it in the traditional channels.