The long-awaited recovery in home inventory is gaining steam

The long-awaited recovery in home inventory is gaining steam

THE NEWS: By Redfin’s latest count, homebuyers now have?more listings to choose from?at any given time than they did at this point last year. Nearly 1.5 million U.S. homes were available for sale in June on a seasonally-adjusted basis, a 2.4 percent increase from the previous month and 1.8 percent higher than in June of last year, the Seattle-based real estate company?reported. The bump marks?the first month?since the start of the pandemic in which Redfin’s home inventory estimate was up year-over-year.

BEHIND THE NEWS: Not every company that tracks home inventory concurs with Redfin’s finding of year-over-year growth, but most generally agree: Inventory has been closing the gap in recent months and quickly. Zillow’s?measure of for-sale inventory?still shows fewer homes for sale at the end of June than were on the market at the same time last year. But after being down 27 percent year-over-year in March, that gap has been cut nearly in half in the three months since, Zillow says.

Still, homebuyer demand remains severely depleted by Zillow’s measure, down nearly 50 percent from where it was in June of 2019 before the pandemic upended the economy and sent the housing market into overdrive. The ongoing slowdown in demand for houses may be an early step toward an eventual return to normal inventory levels. Read the full story.

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Side expands into six new states amid market shift, bringing total to 16

THE NEWS: Despite a shifting market and a round of recent layoffs, real estate tech startup Side has expanded into six new states — including New York where the company teamed up with a top-producing duo that just left Douglas Elliman, Side announced this week.

The newly announced expansions specifically include partnerships with Arizona’s Collective Real Estate, Boston’s Signal Real Estate, Private Real Estate Collection in Ohio and Kentucky, Three Real Estate in South Carolina and OFFICIAL, a newly-launched New York-based company from brothers Tal and Oren Alexander.

BEHIND THE NEWS: The Alexander brothers previously led a top-producing Douglas Elliman team who worked with celebrities, such as Tommy Hilfiger, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. In addition to New York, Side’s new states include Arizona, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Ohio and Kentucky. Altogether the expansions mean Side now operates in a total of 16 states including its three original markets of California, Texas and Florida. The expansions took place throughout June but were just announced. Read the full story here.