Housing markets across the country are getting a much-needed infusion of inventory, as the number of homes for sale and new listings are running well ahead of last year’s pace. Overall, inventory nationally is currently 31% higher than this time in 2024, with annual percentage gains in most markets running well into double digits.
But big year-over-year increases don’t necessarily mean inventory levels are high, nor is that one metric useful to determine affordability. “Inventory by itself isn’t enough information to determine whether homes will be affordable,” said Altos President Mike Simonsen in his research paper Unaffordable by Design. “The missing variable is population. We need to track the inventory available for the population. The more people who have to compete for a given listing; the more expensive the homes.”
With that in mind, HousingWire is using a new metric to look at inventory and affordability. By dividing a metropolitan area’s total population by the current number of single-family homes for sale, we can calculate inventory per capita.
The number this produces is inverted. If the number is high, it means inventory levels are low relative to the population because the denominator is relatively lower than the numerator. The vice versa is true as well — if the number is high it means inventory is low.
Unsurprisingly, San Jose has the least inventory per capita, and by quite a large margin. There are 3,389 people in San Jose per available home listing. The next highest is Boston at 2,199. San Jose’’s sister city of San Francisco has the third-least at 2,005, with Baltimore (1,649) and Washington, D.C. (1,536) following.
The metro areas with the most housing inventory per capita are areas where the housing market ran hot in the aftermath of the pandemic, but have cooled considerably since mortgage rates began to rise in 2022.
Four of the six markets with the most inventory per capita are in Texas. San Antonio has the most, with just 208 people per available listing. Houston is third at 281, while Austin (304) and Dallas (335) are not far behind.
Florida is also well-represented among metros with the most inventory per capita. Jacksonville is second with 271 people per home listing. Hurricane-ravaged Tampa (342), Orlando (363) and Miami (418) are showing inventory levels that are significantly higher per capita than in the months following the beginning of the pandemic, when the markets there were scorching.
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