As Spring Homebuying Season Nears, Inventory Hits Historic Low in Dallas-Fort Worth

The shelves at supermarkets aren’t the only places where inventory is low.

Zillow’s December 2021 Market Report finds that the number of homes for sale around the country hit a record low in 2021 — down more than 40% from the end of 2019 before the pandemic hit.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the available inventory of homes for sale was 42.4% below pre-pandemic levels. In North Texas, real estate agents listed only 7,250 single-family homes for sale.

Nationally, only 923,000 homes were on sale in December, a historic low.

“Home shoppers picked the shelves clean this December, leaving fewer active listings than ever before in the U.S. housing market,” Zillow chief economist Jeff Tucker said in the new report. “Enough determined buyers kept up their house hunt to reignite monthly price appreciation.

“Rising mortgage rates could be the next potential headwind, but demand has proven persistent; neither high prices nor slim inventories have deterred buyers so far.”

The common thread between empty supermarket shelves and the housing inventory is the omicron variant, the fourth spike in the COVID-19 pandemic.

December typically reflects a sharp decline in newly listed inventory, but the 18.9% monthly drop last month was the largest in the past three years. The rise of the omicron variant could be partially responsible, pushing homeowners to wait for infection rates to subside before listing.

In the D-FW market, the average time to sell a home was only 17 days in December, according to Zillow. The median home value in D-FW was $344,919 last month, up 25.2% from the previous year.

In the case of supermarkets and warehouses, the demand to keep inventory has been worker shortages. In the case of the housing inventory, the resurgence in coronavirus cases might have caused some potential sellers to delay listing their housings for sale, according to the Zillow survey.

Either way, blame it on the omicron variant.

Methodology: The Zillow Real Estate Market Report is a monthly overview of the national and local real estate markets. The reports are compiled by Zillow Research. For more information, visit www.zillow.com/research.