The median home sale price rose 14% year over year to $376,800 in September, the lowest growth rate since December 2020, according to a new report from Redfin (www.redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. September marked the 14th consecutive month of double-digit price gains. Closed home sales and new listings of homes for sale both fell from a year earlier, by 5% and 9% respectively.

"The severe lack of inventory is restricting home sales," said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. "Even though plenty of people bought homes last year, many homebuyers waited while the pandemic went from bad to worse and remote-work policies were finalized. The homebuyers who are just beginning their search are finding that the well has run dry. But I am hopeful that as it becomes easier to get building materials, we will finally have a strong year for new construction in 2022. That's what the market needs more than anything."

Median sale prices increased from a year earlier in all but one of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks: Bridgeport, CT, where prices were down 2.2%. A year ago prices were up 32% in Bridgeport as the area experienced a sudden flood of interest from homebuyers looking to leave New York. The current price decline is likely a cooling from an extremely overheated state. The largest price increases in September 2021 were in North Port, FL (+30%), Salt Lake City (+28%) and Austin, TX (+27%).

Seasonally-adjusted home sales in September were down 5% from a year earlier, the second annual decline in 16 months. Home sales fell in 66 of the 85 largest metro areas Redfin tracks. The biggest sales declines were seen in New Orleans (-42%), Bridgeport, CT (-24%) and Salt Lake City (-23%). The largest gains were in places where sales were still somewhat depressed in September 2020, including New York (+26%), Honolulu (+24%) and San Jose, CA (+15%).

Seasonally adjusted active listings—the count of all homes that were for sale at any time during the month—fell 19% year over year in September, on par with the previous month. Only three of the 85 largest metros tracked by Redfin posted a year-over-year increase in the number of seasonally adjusted active listings of homes for sale: Austin, TX (+3%), Tacoma, WA (+3%) and Columbus, OH (+0.3%). The biggest year-over-year declines in active housing supply in September were in Baton Rouge, LA (-53%), Salt Lake City (-50%) and Rochester, NY (-47%).

Seasonally adjusted new listings of homes for sale were down 9% in September from a year earlier, only the second decline since February. New listings fell from a year ago in 75 of the 85 largest metro areas. The biggest declines were in Baton Rouge, LA (-59%), Allentown, PA (-57%) and Salt Lake City (-51%). New listings rose the most from a year ago in Austin, TX (+18%), Tacoma, WA (+9%) and Portland, OR (+8%).

Measures of housing market competition based on completed home sales eased further in September. The typical home that sold in September went under contract in 18 days—more than a week faster than a year earlier, when homes sold in a median 29 days, but up three days from the record low in June.

In September, 48% of homes sold above list price, down 8 percentage points from the record high in June, but up 14 percentage points from a year earlier. The average sale-to-list price ratio also dipped slightly in September to 101%, down from a record high of 102.5% in June but up from 99.4% a year earlier.

—Redfin