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AVAILABILITY OVER
LOCATION
Buying a house in 2018 has become steadily
more intricate with consistent declines in
availability and continued price increases,
according to an analysis by Realtor.com that
identified a shift in buyer activity. e report
analyzed thousands of views to Realtor.com's
website covering the 100 largest metropolitan
areas in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to
2016 and identified a major trend: affordability
and availability over location.
e analysis primarily focused on a metro's
inbound to outbound ratio, which was defined
as the ratio of views to that metro from other
metros with notable interest from more expensive
markets to less expensive nearby markets.
e report found shifting interests included
demands for properties in smaller cities such
as Bakersfield and Fresno as compared to
their more expensive Californian counterparts
such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and
Sacramento.
On average the metropolitan areas with
the most inbound views had a median listing
price of $291,000 compared to the $521,000
of areas such as San Francisco, New York,
Washington, D.C., and Seattle.
Home buyers instead focused their searches
on more affordable locations outside of major
metropolitan areas where markets with the
highest overall interest were more affordable,
had higher expected employment growth, and
more available inventory than the markets
they receive their inbound views from, the
report noted.
Another contributing factor in this shift
was the significantly lower inventory available
for buyers in these major metros.
"is low inventory availability, coupled
with unaffordability and only average
employment performance, could explain
why these markets are seeing a lower ratio
of inbound views to outbound views,"
said Sabrina Speianu, Economic Research
Analysist for Realtor.com and the writer of
this report. "e markets with the highest
overall inbound to outbound ratios are more
affordable, have higher expected employment
growth, and more available inventory than
the markets they receive their inbound views
from."
