Columbia SC Housing Inventories Are Falling
Columbia SC housing inventories are down. The National Association of Realtors 
(NAR) reports that inventories fell by 1.3 percent in March, leaving inventories 21.8 percent below their year-earlier levels.
Home sales have now posted year-over-year gains in each of the last nine months. But in almost all of those months, the number of homes for sale has declined.
3 Reasons to Explain Why Columbia SC Housing Inventories Have Fallen:
- With home prices down by one-third from their peak, who wants to sell a house right now if they don’t have to? That’s especially true for the roughly 15% of homeowners who are underwater on their mortgage.
- Banks have decelerated the foreclosure process after they were caught routinely passing off bogus documents to demonstrate ownership. That has slowed the pace at which they’re putting Columbia SC homes back up for sale.
- While investors initially were buying up Columbia SC foreclosures that could be fixed and flipped, or resold, for a quick profit, over the past two years, more investors have been buying inexpensive homes that can be rented out. Those homes are, for the most part, out of the for-sale pool for the near-term.
Columbia SC Housing Inventories Down Only Temporarily?
Of these three reasons for Columbia SC housing inventories to be down, the first two would imply that the downturn in listings is artificial, and possibly temporary. But the role of investors in today’s market could make the drop more lasting.
The NAR report also showed that the West was the only part of the country to see a year-over-year decline in sales during the month of March. The drop was almost solely concentrated around properties priced below $100,000, where sales were down 19 percent.
Are there any other reasons you can think of that would be causing Columbia SC housing inventories to be unusually low right now? We’d love to hear your comments.