Market conditions have been a bit of a wild ride over recent years, with affordability and inventory challenges, coupled with other economic headwinds, keeping buyers and sellers on edge. Rate lock-in has many sellers awaiting better conditions to make their move, while high home prices have buyers doing the same. What the industry as a whole awaits is more of a balance, but that can be hard to track, as Realtor.com® addresses in a new report.
Realtor.com’s new Market Clock tool has placed the current housing market at 3 o’clock—described as a “Balanced-Loosening” phase, which the portal explained means the market is “heading toward buyer-friendly conditions, though not necessarily approaching them quickly.” Regionally, there are significant variations across the 50 largest metros, which “currently span nearly the full face of the clock.”
The newly debuted tool is designed to analyze local housing conditions into a measure of whether it’s a buyer, seller or balanced market, and the future trajectory. The market clock is organized as a 12-hour clockface, with seller-leaning conditions at the top of the clock (the 11, 12 and 1 o’clock positions), buyer-leaning conditions at the bottom (5, 6, 7 o’clock) and balanced phases in between—with a loosening balance toward buyers at 2, 3, 4 o’clock and a tightening balance back toward sellers at 8, 9, 10 o’clock.
Within the market conditions Realtor.com breaks down as follows:
| Buyer | Balanced | Seller |
| Early buyer (buyers beginning to see upper hand, but has yet to peak) | Early balanced (moving away from buyers) | Early seller (sellers beginning to see upper hand, but has yet to peak) |
| Peak buyer | Balanced – warming | Peak seller |
| Late buyer (peak has passed, but conditions still favor buyers) | Balanced – cooling | Late seller (peak has passed, but conditions still favor sellers) |
| Late balanced (moving toward buyers) |
As Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale explained, “a national picture is useful, but when making a real estate decision, the local details are what really matter.”
“Right now, a homebuyer in Houston or San Antonio is navigating a very different market than someone in Hartford or Milwaukee,” she continued. “The Realtor.com Market Clock was built to make those differences visible at a glance.”
Hale noted that “consumers and professionals are exposed to more information than ever before,” but more data doesn’t always translate into more clarity.
“The Market Clock is our attempt to change that—to take the full range of signals we track and translate them into something that reflects what the market actually feels like on the ground,” she continued.
Currently, eight markets were identified as buyer’s markets, with seven located in the South and one in the West:
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Austin, Texas
- Jacksonville, Florida
- Miami, Florida
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Orlando, Florida
- Tampa, Florida
- Riverside, California
These eight markets are also all identified as having early buyer conditions.
On the other end of the spectrum, 13 markets were identified as seller’s markets, with seven in the Midwest, three in the Northeast, two in the West and one in the South:
- Grand Rapids, Michigian
- Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Providence, Rhode Island
- San Francisco, California
- Chicago, Illinois
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Hartford, Connecticut
- Virginia Beach, Virginia
- Columbus, Ohio
- Boston, Massachusetts
- San Jose, California
Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Providence and San Francisco are all in early seller states, while Chicago, Indianapolis, Hartford and Virginia Beach are in peak seller’s market territory. Columbus, Boston and San Jose, however, are late seller markets.
Also of note are the loosening balanced markets:
| Clock hour 2, early balanced | Clock hour 3, balanced, cooling | Clock hour 4, late balanced |
| Dallas, Texas | Cincinnati, Ohio | Detroit, Michigan |
| Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky | Cleveland, Ohio | Baltimore, Maryland |
| Denver, Colorado | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Los Angeles, California | Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
| Sacramento, California | Houston, Texas | Raleigh, North Carolina |
| San Diego-Carlsbad, California | Memphis, Tennessee | Washington, D.C. |
| Tucson, Arizona | Richmond, Virginia | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| San Antonio, Texas | Phoenix, Arizona | |
And the tightening balanced markets:
| Clock hour 9, balanced, warming | Clock hour 10, late balanced |
| Minneapolis, Minnesota | Buffalo, New York |
| New York, New York | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Portland, Oregon | |
| Seattle, Washington |
The report notes that current conditions are the most “fragmented” measured in “at least” eight years, with significant and wide regional variations in market dynamics. Furthermore, market evolutions are more likely to be driven by “local cycles…rather than national trends,” meaning it remains vitally important for real estate professionals to stay abreast of factors affecting the areas they operate in.
