Available inventory of homes for sale has been climbing for four years. Overall there are 9% more homes on the market now compared to last year at this time. We see headlines that announce there are dramatically more sellers than buyers. Some pundits have even written that there are so many homes for sale, we can declare that there is in fact no shortage of homes anymore.
While those statements may be true in Dallas, you wouldn’t know it if you’re a home buyer in Chicago or Connecticut. Those markets have nearly 70% fewer homes for sale now than in 2019. Seventy percent! Despite social media messages to the contrary, the inventory shortage crisis is clearly in full force in much of the country.
Available inventory of homes for sale in Texas has indeed skyrocketed roughly 400% since the pandemic lows. At the same time, inventory in most of the Midwest and Northeast has increased barely at all. The challenges in these housing markets sound exactly like pandemic frenzy: Too many buyers, not enough sellers. Multiple offers. Bidding wars. “We desperately need more listings,” a Boston-area agent told me last week when I was there.
Take a look at this map of inventory changes at the state level compared to 2019. The end of the last decade was maybe the last “normal” housing market we had, so it’s a useful reference for comparison now. The bluer the states in the map, the more inventory on the market now than in 2019. The orange states have less.
Thirty-six states still have less available inventory than in 2019. The country as a whole has 15% fewer homes for sale than in 2019. Every time I look at this map I am shocked at how lopsided the market is.
Why is inventory growth so lopsided?
The great stay
To get a glimpse, let’s zero in on Chicago as an example. Chicago is an economic draw from around the Midwest. When you graduate college in Bloomington or Ann Arbor, you often find your way to Chicago. At the same time, for many years, long-term Chicagoans have sought the warmer weather and newer infrastructure of the Sun Belt. For many years, net migration from Chicago, inbound movers minus outbound, has been negative. More people have been moving out of the region than in.
For the real estate market, that meant there were plenty of home sellers, a robust resale market and relatively stable affordability.
But in the last few years, that migration pattern has changed. Using data from Censai Analytics we can see dramatic changes in net outflow and inflow. Q2 2025 showed the first net inbound migration period for the region in many years.
Note that this isn’t Chicago’s magnetic force suddenly amplifying. This is an illustration of the phenomenon I’ve called “The Great Stay.” There are fewer people leaving. There are also fewer people moving in.
This isn’t just a Chicago phenomenon. This migration pattern is common across all the low-inventory markets in the Midwest and Northeast. It’s true, to a lesser extent, in California. That state has had net outbound migration for many years. During the pandemic that outflow accelerated. Now it has slowed. As a result, the states which get a lot of migration from California — places like Denver, Austin, Boise and even Nashville — have ample inventory, while Los Angeles has 35% fewer homes for sale now than in 2019.
When does the pattern change?
When does migration resume and balance out this inventory crisis? I’m looking at two factors.
The first is affordability. A few years in this dynamic mean that home prices in inventory-starved markets push higher, while relative bargains develop in those Sun Belt markets with a lot of inventory. Eventually, that price gap becomes wide enough to justify the move. When it does, sellers in the Midwest and Northeast will re-enter the market, listings will rise and some equilibrium will return.
But this isn’t just a price problem. We’re also worried about our jobs. The hiring rate is really slow. If you looked only at the current hiring rate at 3.2%, you’d conclude the country was in a deep recession, even though unemployment is still relatively low. Since companies aren’t hiring, we’re not moving for new jobs. We’re not moving across the country. We’re afraid to leave our job in Chicago or New Jersey for something new in Dallas or Orlando.
That’s the second unlock: the labor market. Historically, job mobility has been one of the most powerful drivers of housing turnover. People move because they get a better offer somewhere else. They take a promotion. They relocate for a new chapter. When hiring finally accelerates again, that friction in the housing market will begin to dissolve. Sellers will have the confidence of a new paycheck waiting for them on the other side of a move. Buyers will have a clear financial reason to uproot.
Until then, we’re in a holding pattern. Not frozen, exactly, but deeply stuck. The stuckness means fewer homes are for sale in the parts of the country that in recent times have had net outbound migration. The national headline numbers obscure more than they reveal. A 9% year-over-year inventory increase sounds like meaningful progress. But for the buyer in suburban Hartford or the first-timer trying to break into the Chicagoland market, that statistic isn’t any help.
The map tells the real story. It’s a deep imbalance of crisis shortage and ample supply. Until Americans start moving again, for jobs, for affordability, or simply for the next chapter, balance is going to be hard to find.
English (US) · 