I talk a lot about inventory, Months-of-Inventory, and the like, but it is historically low. There are explanations for this, but the bottom line (literally) is what it means for prices. Depending on the data source, the details vary, but the consensus is that prices rose in the high-single digits last year.
In Lubbock, we saw decreasing inventory through the year, in excess of seasonal trends. I’ve already written on how that affected prices. Not necessarily reflected in the MLS data are newly built homes. The West Texas Home Builders reported 2020 numbers through November recently at 1906 year to date.
In our Mover’s Moving index we saw a strong showing, with 207 transactions in December. This number might well reflect a mix of trends (e.g. preparation for spring building, shuffling of investment properties) some of which promise relief got low inventories and some that are a mere reaction to it.