After a long stretch of buyers competing over too few homes, inventory has started to bounce back over the past year. Depending on where you live, that’s giving you more choices and opening up your options in a real, meaningful way.

According to Realtor.com, January had the most homes for sale since 2020, and that’s important. Returning to pre-pandemic inventory levels points to a gradual return to normal, with the market moving back toward more typical supply and demand patterns.

Now, it’s worth noting that nationally we’re not quite there yet, and more inventory isn’t going to suddenly “fix” the market. But the growth we’ve seen lately is still making things feel a lot less competitive for buyers.

• When there are more homes for sale, buyers have more time to decide, more choices to explore, and a little more negotiating power.

• When there aren’t, things heat up fast and the pressure to act quickly goes way up.

Since 2020, there haven’t been enough homes for sale, which made the market feel rushed, stressful, and intimidating.

But now it's finally starting to improve.

A Growing Portion of the Country Is Getting Back to Normal

Depending on where you live, inventory growth will vary. Some areas are recovering faster than others. Lance Lambert, co-founder of ResiClub, said that in January 2025, just over one year ago, only 41 of the 200 largest metros had returned to normal inventory levels.

By the end of the year, nearly half of the largest 200 metro areas, about 90, were back at or above typical levels. That’s a big improvement in roughly a year, and it’s not finished yet.

Inventory Is Expected To Keep Growing 

Looking ahead, forecasts suggest the number of homes for sale could rise about 10% this year, meaning more markets will likely see supply bounce back.

Here’s a graph showing what an extra 10% could do for the market this year. The projected growth, shown by the dotted line, reaches inventory levels similar to 2017–2019 by around this fall, indicated by the gray lines. That means we could be back to more normal national inventory levels by the end of the year.

And that improves your home search. As Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, explains:

““. . . housing market conditions are gradually rebalancing after several years of extreme seller advantage. Buyers are beginning to see more options and modest negotiating power as inventory improves . . .”
”

— Hannah Jones, Senior Economic Research Analyst at Realtor.com

In other words, the market is beginning to cooperate with buyers again rather than working against them.

Bottom Line

Inventory hasn’t fully returned to normal everywhere, but it’s headed in the right direction, and in some areas it already has.

If you’ve been waiting for a time when you have choices and some breathing room, this is the best opportunity buyers have had in a long time.

If you want to stay informed about our local market, let’s chat.