Real Estate Inventory Levels Now Rising

Rising real estate inventory levels is not good news, as the biggest problem that our market faces is the over supply of homes in all counties that comprise the Tallahassee MLS. While we normally focus on Leon County, this monthly graphic shows housing market supply and demand in  Tallahassee and its surrounding counties.

Real supply (the number of homes for sale in the MLS, including all statuses from active through contingent) are measured in red, while the relative supply (months of supply) is shown in purple.

When we look at the real supply of homes (red), we see that our MLS has roughly double the number of homes for sale as we had “pre-boom” in 2003, while relative supply has shot up to 18 months. A balanced market would show 5 to 6 months of supply.

Shadow Inventory Not Included

We also know that we have roughly 5,000 homes in the shadow inventory (homes that need to be sold but are not actively listed in the MLS for one reason or another) and these homes are guaranteed future supply.

This excess of supply will continue to put pressure on home values for at least 3 more years, and even longer if the rate of sales continues to decline.