A Seller’s Market for Real Estate Sales

When it comes to home sales, it’s been very much a seller's market for a number of years now, with the number of buyers exceeding the number of homes for sale.

In a market that is balanced between buyers and sellers, there should be around 5 or 6 months of supply inventory (inventory divided by monthly sales).

In the local area around Winston Salem and Greensborough, at the end of June, there were only 2900 homes available for sale, or 1.6 months of inventory. The median days on market was only 8 days.

To put this in perspective, ten years ago in 2013, there were a little over 11,000 homes on the market, or 8.7 months supply - so it was more of a buyer's market. The median days on market was 58 days, or about 2 months.

Looking back to the year the housing bubble burst - which was at the end of 2008, there were over 14,700 homes on the market and 11 months supply of inventory.

The market started tilting towards sellers in 2017. By 2021, the area had only one month’s supply of inventory.

To be back at a balanced market, we would need to have approximately 12,500 homes for sale, as opposed the the 2,900 we actually have.

I don’t see that turning around any time soon. Things could very well start to ease, but I would expect to be in a sellers market for several years to come.