During November, the number of listings for single-family homes declined 26 percent in Los Angeles County, according to a new quarterly report from Douglas Elliman.
There were 1,794 listings in L.A. County in November compared to October, when there were 2,426 homes listed in the county. However, In a year-over-year comparison, there was a 5.8 percent uptick in listings. In November 2021, there were only 1,695 listings.
Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, said that monthly comparisons give a more accurate picture of the current market because the real estate bonanza of 2021 gives warped benchmarks for the current soft market.
Of course, interest rates have changed the market, but other factors are influencing L.A. County’s housing picture, Miller said.
“When there’s an external event like a rate spike, inventory piles high to the sky. But that’s not what happened,” Miller said.
Homeowners have not put their homes on the market because of the instability of the political and economic environment, with inflation and U.S. midterm elections. “You have a situation where there’s a tremendous amount of demand, but you have people waiting or pausing before they feel comfortable to tip-toe into the market,” he said.
L.A. County inventory of homes for sale is about 22 percent below the pre-pandemic level, Miller said, comparing the number of single-family homes for sale in the third quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2019.
One reason why the inventory has declined is that sellers are delisting their houses until the market changes. The report’s news of L.A. County’s inventory declines echoes a recent Redfin report which said that a record number of U.S. homes for sale were delisted in a recent three-month span.
On average, 2 percent of homes were delisted each week during the 12-week period ending Nov. 20. Redfin gave a comparison of 1.6 percent of U.S. homes being delisted in the same period in the previous year.
Home sales also declined in November, according to the Elliman report. Last month, 1,643 homes sold. That represents a decline of 18.7 percent from the previous month when 2,022 home sales closed in Los Angeles County, and a whopping 50 percent fall from the same time a year ago when 3,290 homes sold in the county.
Reasons for the decline in home sales also include high mortgage rates and housing inventory being gobbled up during the pandemic, Miller said.
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