Number of U.S. Home Sale Listings Increases in January

Just a blip?

After a year and a half of slowly declining numbers of homes listed for sale in America, January’s numbers reported by ZipRealty show an increase in listings by 2.9% or 15,000 total homes.

The rise in the number of listings in the 27 major US metropolitan markets totals 567,265 homes for sale, and with 18.9 million homes vacant, which isn’t quite the hair that will break the camel’s back but doesn’t look like an upswing in the immediate future can be forecasted.

Stabilization in the housing market will come when many of the moving pieces fall into place but it might be some time before that happens. Year over year, most markets had rises in inventory numbers, but perhaps FHA’s announcement this week that they would relax anti-flipping rules, the U.S. Treasury has vowed to improve the Home Affordable Modification Program and the end of 2009 ending with December seeing an increase in number of home sale contracts that were signed, there is hope yet for recovery.