Inventories of homes for sale declined or were essentially flat from July to August in all 25 markets tracked by real estate brokerage ZipRealty, with 19 markets seeing double-digit declines from a year ago.
Inventories shrank by an average of 2.7 percent from July to August, with declines in 21 markets and little or no change in four others, ZipRealty said, according to multiple listing service data.
From July to August, for-sale inventory in the San Francisco Bay Area declined by 7.6 percent, followed by Orlando (-5.1 percent), Washington, D.C. (-4.7 percent), Miami (-4.4 percent), Boston (-3.9 percent), Austin (-3.8 percent), Las Vegas (-3.4 percent), Charlotte (-2.7 percent), Minneapolis-St. Paul (-2.7 percent), Chicago (-2.5 percent) and Tampa (-2.5 percent).
Inventories were essentially unchanged from July to August in Baltimore, Jacksonville, Fla., Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Va., and Salt Lake City.
Looking back a year, inventories of homes and condos were down 23 percent, with 19 metros seeing a double-digit drop in homes for sale.
The 10 markets that saw the biggest decline in inventories from a year ago were the San Francisco Bay Area (-46.9 percent), Las Vegas (-44.4 percent), Phoenix (-42.4 percent), Miami (-36.7 percent), Sacramento (-33.5 percent), Orlando (-33.3 percent), Washington, D.C. (-32.6 percent), Tampa (-26.3 percent), Tucson (-21.8 percent) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (-21.7 percent).
The number of homes on the market was up by 9.7 percent from a year ago in Charlotte, N.C., and 5 percent in Richmond, Va., ZipRealty said.
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