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Dreamstime
Coronavirus sent the U.S. housing market for a spin this summer as demand outstripped supply—and the highly competitive environment appears to have continued into the fall.
“Normally, this last week of September is sort of a buyers’ sweet spot,”
Danielle Hale
, chief economist at Realtor.com, told Barron’s. In a typical year, September is when buyer demand decreases as home listings remain on the market, resulting in more options and less competition, she said.
But that was not the case this year. Homes spent an average of 54 days on the market nationally in September, 12 fewer days than the same month last year and three fewer than in August 2020, according to a Realtor.com study. That’s an unusual occurrence during a month when market activity normally begins to slow. This was the first year since at least 2016 when homes spent less