Jan 13 - In 4Q 2024, we reached a peak of 22,006 active listings without a contract across all areas & types within the ARMLS database on November 24. This dropped to a low of 19,460 on January 2. Although sellers were helped by the 12% reduction in competition that disappeared between Thanksgiving and New Year, they have little reason to be encouraged by the developments since then.
Active listings have grown back to 21,047 so we are only 4% below the November peak and the current increase is around 4% per week, so we are probably going to regain that peak level within a week or two. It is not clear where supply will head beyond this, but 22,000 plus listings is going to be more than we need with demand still subdued. New listings are arriving in 2025 at almost the same rate as 2020, which is significantly faster than the intervening 4 years.
Where is demand? Closed listings stand around 5,000 per month and year to date closings are down 12% from this time last year. We have 5,750 listings under contract. We started the year with 5,496 under contract, so the rise since the beginning of the year is pretty feeble at only 4.6%. On Jan 13 last year we had seen a growth of 13.2% in listings under contract by now. You would be right to conclude that 2025 is starting distinctly slower than 2024 did.
We can look at supply and demand at the same time by tracking the contract ratio. The current contract ratio figure for Jan 13 is 27.32. Unfortunately, this is slightly down from Jan 1 at 27.47. I was hoping to see a recovery to the 30+ level by now. and we did reach 28.32 on Jan 8, but the recent surge in mortgage rates to over 7.25% seems to have killed off that hope. We were at 6.69% this time last year.
It is early days yet and the spring buying season is yet to start, but I am not expecting the Cromford® Market Index to make much more progress out of the low nineties. It currently stands at 91.6 and it would not surprise me if it fell back below 90 by the end of January, unless conditions improve significantly between now and then.
2025 Cromford report information