<h2>The Disappearing Home Inventory and Home Prices</h2>

It’s no secret to anyone who has paid attention to housing markets over the past year that the number of homes for sale has dropped sharply.

Interactive information and data at this Wall Street Journal page, shows lots of data from each region.

For example, in Phoenix, where inventory was down in June by nearly 48% from one year ago, the biggest decline is for the least expensive third of the housing market, where supplies are down by 67%. This reflects heavy demand from investors for cheap properties that can be held off the market and rented at a profit.

“On the seller side, most homes priced below $250,000 are attracting a large number of offers and often exceed the asking price,” says Michael Orr, a housing analyst at Arizona State University. That’s created a “dire” situation for home buyers. “Any offer from an ordinary home buyer is typically going to be less attractive than the multiple all-cash offers from investors with few strings attached and no appraisal required. Many ordinary buyers are coming away empty-handed after submitting 10 or more offers.”

Miami inventory is down by 35% from one year ago while Los Angeles and Riverside, Calif., are each down by 36%.

Inventories are also low in some of the hardest-hit markets — those feared to have a large “shadow inventory” of foreclosed homes — because many homeowners can’t sell without taking a big loss. That means markets with high levels of underwater borrowers, or those who owe more than their homes are worth, are perversely seeing fewer homes listed for sale.

In Phoenix, for example, the middle third of the market has 47% fewer homes than one year ago, and the top third has seen a 34% drop in homes for sale. Big drops in the supply of homes for sale — particularly in the West — are beginning to lead to declines in sales volumes.

For the nation as a whole, inventories were down by 20% from one year ago, but it was the middle tier that saw the largest decline in listings (-21%), followed by the top end (-20%) and then the low end (-16%).

Markets that have seen less severe declines in home prices have seen smaller inventory drops. Cincinnati is down by 6% from one year ago, followed by Pittsburgh, which is down by 12%.

Check out what conditions look like in your market.