Green Valley Homes | Search Green Valley AZ Real Estate and Homes for Sale | Russ Fortuno, Tierra Antigua Realty
Register Login (520) 333-0446
  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Homes for Sale
  • Area Information
    • Dining Out
    • Golf
    • Green Valley Recreation
    • Mover’s Guide
    • Visitor’s Information
  • Buyers
  • Sellers
  • About
  • Real Estate News
You are here: Home / Blog / Market Trends

Housing inventory indicates market isn’t headed for a crash

August 24, 2022

Housing inventory indicates market isn’t headed for a crash

Whether or not you owned a home in 2008, you likely remember the housing crash that took place back then. And news about an economic slowdown happening today may bring all those concerns back to the surface. While those feelings are understandable, data can help reassure you the situation today is nothing like it was in 2008.

One of the key reasons why the market won’t crash this time is the current undersupply of inventory. Housing supply comes from three key places:

  • Current homeowners putting their homes up for sale
  • Newly built homes coming onto the market
  • Distressed properties (short sales or foreclosures)

For the market to crash, you’d have to make a case for an oversupply of inventory headed to the market, and the numbers just don’t support that. So, here’s a deeper look at where inventory is coming from today to help prove why the housing market isn’t headed for a crash.

Current homeowners putting their homes up for sale

Even though housing supply is increasing this year, there’s still a limited number of existing homes available. The graph below helps illustrate this point. Based on the latest weekly data, inventory is up 27.8 percent compared to the same week last year (shown in blue). But compared to the same week in 2019 (shown in the larger red bar), it’s still down by 42.6 percent.

Inventory still historically low

So, what does this mean? Inventory is still historically low. There simply aren’t enough homes on the market to cause prices to crash. There would need to be a flood of people getting ready to sell their houses in order to tip the scales toward a buyers’ market. And that level of activity simply isn’t there.

Newly built homes coming onto the market

There’s also a lot of talk about what’s happening with newly built homes today, and that may make you wonder if we’re overbuilding. But home builders are actually slowing down their production right now.

“It has become a very competitive market for builders where they are trying to offload any standing inventory,” notes Ali Wolf, Chief Economist at Zonda.

To avoid repeating the overbuilding that happened leading up to the housing crisis, builders are reacting to higher mortgage rates and softening buyer demand by slowing down their work. It’s a sign they’re being intentional about not overbuilding homes like they did during the bubble.

And according to the latest data from the U.S. Census, at today’s current pace, we’re headed to build a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.4 million homes this year. While this will add more inventory to the market, it’s not on pace to create an oversupply because builders today are more cautious than the last time when they built more homes than the market could absorb.

Distressed Properties (Short Sales or Foreclosures)

The last place inventory can come from is distressed properties, including short sales and foreclosures. Back in the housing crisis, there was a flood of foreclosures due to lending standards that allowed many people to secure a home loan they couldn’t truly afford. Today, lending standards are much tighter, resulting in more qualified buyers and far fewer foreclosures. The graph below uses data from ATTOM Data Solutions on properties with foreclosure filings to help paint the picture of how things have changed since the crash:

Foreclosure activity by year

This graph shows how in the time around the housing crash there were over one million foreclosure filings per year. As lending standards tightened since then, the activity started to decline. And in 2020 and 2021, the forbearance program was a further aid to help prevent a repeat of the wave of foreclosures we saw back around 2008.

That program was a game changer, giving homeowners options for things like loan deferrals and modifications they didn’t have before. And data on the success of that program shows four out of every five homeowners coming out of forbearance are either paid in full or have worked out a repayment plan to avoid foreclosure. These are a few of the biggest reasons there won’t be a wave of foreclosures coming to the market.

Bottom Line

Although housing supply is growing this year, the market certainly isn’t anywhere near the inventory levels that would cause prices to drop significantly. That’s why inventory tells us the housing market won’t crash.

Filed Under: Market Trends Tagged With: Distressed Property, Inventory, New Construction, Supply & Demand

New Listing

NOTIFICATIONS

  • Email Alerts for New Listings
  • Save Your Favorites
  • Schedule Showing Requests
  • Price Change Notifications
  • Plus More…

Sign Up

What’s Your

HOME WORTH?

Find Out

Client

TESTIMONIALS

"Russ Fortuno not only made our Green Valley AZ home purchase happen, he made it easy. We live in Eastern Washington and wanted to buy a vacation home in Green Valley but were apprehensive about buying a property without physically seeing it. Russ made the process easy. He supplied us with walk-through videos of every property we showed interest in, paying special attention to any issues the property might have. By the time we actually saw the property we were purchasing, we felt like we had been there a number of times. Russ walked us through the buying process from beginning to end! We highly recommend Russ and will use him for all or our real estate needs."
- D.W., Chattaroy, WA
"I was able to see Russ in action when he helped my aunt and uncle buy a house here in Green Valley. He is very knowledgeable about this area and the home buying process. He went above and beyond in many ways: showing lots of houses, pointing out pros and cons of each house, helping decide on an offering price and recommending a good loan agent. Russ is everything a real estate agent should be and I highly recommend him."
- L.S., Green Valley AZ
"I can’t say enough about what an outstanding job Russ did for us! We decided to retire to AZ and after touring several areas in the state, we chose the Tucson area. I found Russ online and reached out to him to help us find our retirement neighborhood and home. Russ spent a day showing us all of the different neighborhoods in both Sahuarita and Green Valley that met our requirements and were within our budget. By the end of the day, we had chosen four neighborhoods. Russ then found four homes for sale in our chosen neighborhoods; two in our favorite! The next day, Russ took us to tour the four homes and by the end of the second day, we made an offer. We are relocating from Kentucky and Russ has been there for us every single step of the way. He has been invaluable in making this entire experience smooth and exciting for us! His service after the sale has been equally exemplary!"
- E. W., Sahuarita AZ
View All

Listing Notifications

Sign Up! New listings delivered to your inbox!
Sign Up Now

Stay Connected

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Phone
  • Vimeo

agent photo

Russ Fortuno, Associate Broker

I'm a Southern Arizona native and year-round Green Valley resident. Whether you’re buying or selling a home in the Green Valley or Sahuarita area, you’ll experience unsurpassed service and professionalism at all stages of your real estate transaction. I welcome the opportunity to assist in your next home sale or purchase.
Meet Russ

Tierra Antigua Realty

18745 S. I-19 Frontage Rd., Ste. A105
Green Valley, AZ 85614
(520) 333-0446
Contact Russ

© 2023 Russell E Fortuno PLLC, All Rights Reserved. ADRE BR658088000   •   Privacy