Zillow Weekly Market Report: Data Through August 8, 2020

Newly pending sales are up nearly 17% year over year and price growth is accelerating. More new listings were added to the market last week than the week prior, but not enough to keep up with the pace of sales as total inventory fell further below where it was last year. That strong buyer demand has been evident in both urban and suburban areas of the country during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Home sales set new record pace

• Newly pending sales rose 1.3% from the previous week, and are now up 16.9% year over year.
• Homes sold last week typically went under contract after 13 days, which is 11 days faster than during the same period last year and a new record low in Zillow data that dates back to the start of 2019.
• The fastest-moving large markets -- Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City and Raleigh -- saw sellers typically accept an offer after their homes were on the market only four days. 

New listings boost not enough to keep total inventory from falling further

• There were 4.3% more new for-sale listings added to the market than the week prior.  
• Still, new listings are 13.2% lower than a year ago. And total inventory slipped further, now down 27.6% year over year. 

Prices are on the upswing

• The median list price in the U.S. last week was $344,660, up 7.3% year over year. In early May, list prices were up 1.1% annually. 
• In the week ending June 27, the median sale price in the U.S. was $269,700, 1.8% higher than the same period a year earlier. Year-over-year sale price growth slowed throughout May but is climbing again, up from 0.7% from two weeks earlier. 

Urban real estate is keeping pace with suburban markets

• Urban and suburban housing markets across the U.S. have shown similar strength in key housing indicators since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Manhattan, San Francisco and the national rental market are notable exceptions where there has been a divergence between urban areas and the suburbs.

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Methodology

The Zillow Weekly Market Reports are a weekly overview of the national and local real estate markets. The reports are compiled by Zillow Economic Research and data is aggregated from public sources and listing data on Zillow.com. New for-sale listings data reflect daily counts using a smoothed, seven-day trailing average. Total for-sale listings, newly pending sales, days to pending and median list price data reflect weekly counts using a smoothed, five-week trailing average. National newly pending sales trends are based upon aggregation of the 38 largest metro areas where historic pending listing data coverage is most statistically reliable, and excludes some metros due to upstream data coverage issues. For more information, visit www.zillow.com/research/.

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