By Ron Davis, Reporter, Albuquerque Business First (March 17, 2021)

Albuquerque's housing inventory continued to tighten up in February, according to the latest monthly report from the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors.

GAAR reported a total inventory of single-family homes of just 617 when it released its February market statistics for the local housing market on March 10. The 617 available homes are down from 751 in January and 1,533 from last February.

Still, GAAR reported a jump in the median sales price for a single-family home to $265,000 — a 15.22% year-over-year bump and overall increase from $257,950 last month.

"I don't see a huge change in the next few months," said Belinda Franco, 2021 President of GAAR. "The concern [of low inventory] is definitely there. People aren't just moving from out-of-state, they're looking to relocate within the city itself. I believe Realtors are making a concerted effort to reach out to sellers and try and get more listings. But in general, I don't see and hear a lot of changes, and it's not just New Mexico, I'm hearing low inventory across the country.

Franco said more listings typically pop up in the spring and summer months. She can attribute that to sellers' preference for wanting to test the market in warm weather and the added flexibility of not moving during the school year.

Franco spoke with Business First in February about Rio Rancho, Los Lunas and Mesa del Sol being three of the hottest submarkets in the metro. Franco said home buyers and home builders are bullish on the availability of land in each of the submarkets and the promise of jobs from big companies like Amazon, Facebook and Netflix coming to the area.

Among the other figures from GAAR's February 2021 Albuquerque residential market report when compared to the previous year:

• Days on the market decreased 43.48% — to 26 days.
• New listings decreased 17.53% — to 1,002 listings. The number of new listings often follow seasonal patterns.
• Pending sales increased 14.3% — to 1,151 sales.
• Closed sales increased 8.57% — to 887 sales.
• The percent of list price received increased 1.32% — to 99.7%.
• The absorption rate — essentially how quickly or slowly houses are selling — decreased 72.22% — to 0.5.

Read the latest monthly GAAR reports here.

The highlight sentences were automatically generated by a computer application and is based on data made available by the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors. Albuquerque Business First's Ron Davis and Chris Keller review the data and text before publishing.

Source: "Albuquerque's housing market remains tight according to February report"