Zillow Weekly Market Report: Data Through May 30, 2020

After sustained growth since mid-April, newly pending sales and new listings fell last week. The slowdown could have been driven by the Memorial Day holiday -- pending home sales often see a temporary dip during summer holidays such as Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. Both pending sales and new listings remain well up from the previous month when the market was bouncing back from a slowdown in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Experts surveyed by Zillow expect the sales lost during that period to be recouped in full over the next few years. 

Newly pending sales down from the previous week for the first time since mid-April

• Newly pending sales fell 5.2% from the previous week, with the slowdown perhaps driven by the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Last year at this time, newly pending sales were down 7.1% week over week. 
• The week-over-week change first turned negative in the seven days ending May 25, after it had been positive since the seven days ending April 15.
• Month-over-month, newly pending sales are up 24.5% nationally and remain positive in each of the top-35 metros for which data is available. 

Inventory remains as limited as it’s been in recent years after new listings fell off last week

• Though new listings are up 19.3% from a month ago, they fell 7.2% from a week earlier and remain down 17.2% year over year. 
• Total inventory is down 24.9% from a year ago, marking the biggest year-over-year gap of 2020 thus far.

List prices continue to creep up

• The median list price in the U.S. is $329,941, 3.1% higher than a year ago and up 0.3% from the previous week.
• List prices are higher than last year in 29 of the 35 largest U.S. metros. 

Spring’s missing home sales will return in coming years, experts say

• Experts surveyed by Zillow expect the transactions we lost this spring due to the coronavirus will come back in full, spread over the next several years.
• This quarter is the first in eight years in which the panel has a negative outlook on home value growth. The panelists predict home values will decrease 0.3% in 2020 -- a sharp decline from three months ago when they expected 3.3% growth.

Zillow's pending sales and home price forecast remains steady

• The most recent forecast from Zillow’s economic research team shows an expected 1.8% drop in prices from April to October 2020, with a slow recovery through 2021.
• Zillow economists expect pending sales volume reached its bottom in early April, about 50% below February levels. Pending sales are forecasted to recover almost fully by the end of the year.

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Methodology

The Zillow Weekly Market Reports are compiled by Zillow Economic Research and data is aggregated from public sources and listing data on Zillow.com. All inventory, sales and price data are reported using a smoothed, seven-day trailing average.

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