By Conor Dougherty | The Wall Street Journal
With home sales slowing and newly optimistic buyers putting their homes on the market, the inventory crunch is finally starting to ease up. Existing homes sales increased 1.7% to a 5.48 million annual rate in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. Inventory just barely nudged up, to a 5-month supply from 4.9 months a month ago.
A separate, seasonally adjusted measure of inventory, which TruliaTRLA +0.27% calculates from NAR’s numbers, shows inventory has grown 7 months in a row and stood at 2.07 million units in August, up 5.1% from January but still down about 6% from a year ago.
What’s happening is rising housing prices are inspiring many newly optimistic homeowners to put their property on the market, while at the same time reducing the number of “underwater” borrowers who until recently couldn’t sell their homes because they owned more on their mortgage than the home was worth. With more people putting homes on the market and the pace of sales easing due to the regular fall slowdown and rising mortgage rates, there are more homes on the shelf.
