I’ve been talking for months about the low availability of San Diego housing for sale. In July, as the accompanying graph shows, that scarce inventory got even a little scarcer.
The graph measures the number of existing homes available for sale in comparison to how quickly homes are selling, generating a single measure of supply versus demand. Last month, there were just 4 months’ worth of inventory on the market — clearly quite low compared to prior years.
On top of that, 29 percent of homes for sale were “contingent,” meaning that they were short sales or the like with offers awaiting approval from the lenders. In other words, this 29 percent wasn’t really for sale in the traditional sense. (See this blog entry for a primer on the “contingent” category of for-sale homes).
It’s the same story as in recent months. “Right-now” inventory remains very limited (and prices are rising accordingly) but plenty of “maybe-future” inventory waits in the wings. I’ll be back to check in on that second type of inventory next week.