

The years beyond 2022 will see a bit of both.Ģ020-2021 experienced the triple whammy of a pandemic, recession and financial crash.


This supply-demand imbalance has pushed home prices higher in recent years, even in 2018-2019 when interest rates were still rising. Flash forward to 2022 and the average days-on-market is at a record-low 15 days. At the end of 2019, the average number of days a home sat on the market before achieving a “pending” status was 32 days. This is reflected in the average number of days a home sits on the market in California before being snatched up by eager buyers. Here in California, homes typically leave the market more quickly than in more stable markets. Today’s seller’s market has already begun to tip, with prices to follow in Q4 2022 as inventory grows and homebuyers increasingly take a wait-and-see approach to buying. Along with high inflation, the signs are pointing to a rapidly approaching downturn in the housing market - of which homebuyers and sellers are well aware. The significant interest rate increases of 2022 have slashed buyer purchasing power, making it nigh on impossible for mortgaged homebuyers to compete. Looking forward, expect inventory to climb heading into 2023. Either way, inventory remains near historic lows throughout the state, now rising from the bottom reached at the end of 2021. On the other hand, Riverside saw a slight increase in inventory for sale compared to the prior year. The inventory decline is currently steepest in Los Angeles, with 13% fewer listings than a year earlier as of May 2022. The winter months typically see the lowest inventory of homes for sale, peaking around mid-year. After two years of steep decline, for-sale inventory in California’s largest metros averaged just 1% below a year earlier as of May 2022, according to data from Zillow. Multiple listing service (MLS) inventory has risen from the historic low reached at the end of 2021.
