Lots of inventory, little demand: Median days on the market before homes got pulled or sold spiked to 70 days in Phoenix.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Here are the inventories of homes for sale, and the median number of days they spent on the market, in the biggest metros in the West, other than those in California, which we already discussed here.

Inventories have surged in these markets not because there is a flood of new listings – there isn’t – but because demand has plunged. This shows up in the spiking number of days a home sits on the market before it sells or is pulled off the market; this metric of median days on the market soared despite a surge in delistings by frustrated sellers that couldn’t sell their homes for what they wanted.

In the Denver-Aurora-Centennial metro, active listings in July jumped by 37% year-over-year and by 139% from July 2023, and by 48% from July 2019 (dotted purple), to 13,197 listings, along with June the most in the decade of data from Realtor.com.

Median days on the market jumped to 52 days before homes were sold or pulled off the market, the longest for any July in the decade of data; up from 42 days a year ago, the second-longest in the data (dotted red); and up from 36 days in July 2019, the third-longest for any July in the data (dotted purple).

In the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro, active listings in July spiked by 46% from July 2024 (dotted red line) and by 136% from July 2023, to 9,655 homes for sale, the most in the decade of data from Realtor.com. Compared to July 2019 (dotted purple), the prior high in the data, inventory is up by 24%.

The median number of days that a home sits on the market before it sells or gets pulled off the market rose to 40 days, the highest for any July in the data.

In the Salt Lake City-Murray metro, active listings jumped by 38% year-over-year, by 68% from 2023, and by 19% from July 2019, to 3,454 listings, the highest in the decade of data from Realtor.com. The past five months have all been the highest in the data.

Median days on the market jumped to 52 days in July, the highest for any July in the decade of data, and up from 45 days in July 2024, the second-highest for any July in the data.

In the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, active listings jumped by 37% year-over-year, by 121% from July 2023, and by 37% from July 2019, to 18,157 homes for sale, the highest for any July in the decade of data from Realtor.com. The past five months have all been the highest in the decade of data.

Median days on the market soared to 70 days before homes sold or were delisted, by far the highest for any July in this decade of data, and up from 54 days in July 2024, the second-highest for any July in the data, and up from 51 days in 2019.

And delistings surged in Phoenix, the market in the US with the second-most delistings per new listings (behind only Miami), with 37 delistings per 100 new listings. Delistings have surged this year in many markets across the US as frustrated sellers decide to wait for better times, according to a separate report by Realtor.com last week.

In the Tucson metro, active listings soared by 41% year-over-year, by 139% from July 2023, and by 39% from July 2019, to 3,880 homes for sale, the highest for any July in the decade of data from Realtor.com.

The median number of days that a home spent on the market before it was sold or delisted spiked to 64 days, by far the most for any July in the decade, up from 49 days a year ago, and up from 50 days in July 2019.

In the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro, active listings surged by 26% year-over-year, to 8,713 listings, squeaking for the third time in a row past 2019, the prior highs in data going back a decade.

Median days on the market jumped to 55 days, the highest for any July in the data, and up from 47 days in July 2024, the second highest in the data.

In the Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas metro, active listings spiked by 66% year-over-year, to 9,954 homes for sale, the highest July in the decade of data, having surpassed 2019 for the first time.

Median days on the market jumped to 50 days before homes were pulled off the market or sold, the second highest for any July, behind July 2020.

The inventory surge got a late start. In the spring of 2024, inventory was still ultra-low. In the 16 months since then, inventory has doubled.

In 2022, a huge surge in inventory occurred, with highs in September and October 2022, then inventory plunged, and it continued to plunge in 2023, and by early 2024, it hit ultra-low levels again. These movements in 2022 were not seasonal, but just crazy, and are better depicted in a line chart, not a stacked chart:

In the Boise City metro, inventories rose by 16% year-over-year, and by 16% from 2019, to 3,174 listings, right where it had been in July 2017 (gray line) and below the July 2022 surge (black line).

Median days on the market rose to 46 days, the second-highest for any July in the decade of the data by Realtor.com.

In the Albuquerque metro, active listings rose by 31% from a year ago, to 2,118 homes for sale, but were still substantially below the prepandemic years 2017-2019.

Median days on the market rose to 61 days, the highest for any July in the data, up from 53 days in 2024 and from 51 days in 2019. So not all that much inventory for sale, but so little demand that homes sat for a long time before they sold or got pulled off the market.

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