Listings are up but new listings aren't - what that changes for buyers

Something in the August data is worth separating out, because the headline number is misleading.

Active listings are up 3.6% year over year. New listings are down 0.1%. National inventory is still about 11% below pre-pandemic levels. So the growth in what you see on the market is not sellers arriving. It is buyers absorbing more slowly.

The supporting numbers point the same way. Contract signings are down 3.7% year over year. 20.4% of active listings carry a price reduction. Median time on market is 60 days.

The piece I think gets underweighted is the new-home side. Builders ended July with 9.6 months of supply. A builder sitting on standing inventory can buy down a buyer's rate, and a private seller generally cannot match that. In submarkets with real builder presence you are competing with an incentive budget, not just a list price.

Two practical consequences I have been working with:

1. The negotiation has moved to aged listings. A property at 60-plus days with a reduction already applied is a different conversation than a fresh listing, and the reduction tells you the seller has already adjusted once.

2. Underwrite the days, not just the price. If median time on market went from the low 50s to 60, that is carry you have to fund, and it lands in the same column that used to hold your margin.

Curious whether people are seeing the builder-incentive effect in their markets, or whether it is concentrated in the high-growth metros.