Active Housing Inventory Continues to Improve—But Not in Every Market

Active inventory is improving across the U.S., with some markets benefiting from this growth more than others. National active listings increased by 28.9% between June 2024 and June 2025, putting nationwide inventory just 11.3% below 2019 levels, according to the ResiClub blog. This means that if the housing market maintains the current year-over-year pace of inventory growth—which is an addtion of about 242,528 active home listings—there would be 1.33 million active listings by June 2026.

Most of this growth has been observed in the Sun Belt and Mountain West. Meanwhile, both active resale and new-home listings remain limited in the Midwest and Northeast.

In contrast, active housing inventory for sale has neared or surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels in many parts of the Sun Belt and Mountain West, including metro area housing markets such as Punta Gorda and Austin. Many of these areas saw major price surges during the Pandemic Housing Boom, with home prices getting stretched compared to local incomes. As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend was accelerated further by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives (if they have the margins to do so) to maintain sales in a shifted market, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market: Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. That puts additional upward pressure on resale inventory.