Will the ‘shadow inventory’ stunt a housing recovery?

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

After every bear market on Wall Street, some investors are reluctant to buy because they believe many other investors will be anxious to sell into any rebound, swamping the market and stunting any recovery.

And yet, bull markets get going anyway.

Now the same issue is dogging the housing market.

A new Zillow.com survey of 1,266 homeowners nationwide asks, ‘If you saw signs of a real estate market turnaround in the next 12 months, how likely would you be to put your home up for sale?’

Twelve percent of homeowners said they’d be ‘very likely’ to try to sell into an improving market, 8% said they’d be ‘likely’ to do so and another 12% said they’d be ‘somewhat likely.’

Zillow refers to that total of 32% as the ‘shadow inventory’ of homes.

‘With almost a third of homeowners poised to jump into the market at the first sign of stabilization, this could create a steady stream of new inventory adding to already record-high inventory levels, thus keeping downward pressure on home prices,’ said Stan Humphries, Zillow’s vice president of data and analytics.

By region, just 7% of survey respondents in the West said they were ‘very likely’ to try to sell their homes into an improving market, compared with 10% for the South, 12% for the Midwest and 20% for the Northeast.

Despite the low number for the West, I’ve often wondered through this housing crash whether California would be particularly vulnerable to a supply overhang -- in large part because of the number of aging California baby boomers whose retirement plan had consisted of eventually selling their home (at a big profit) and leaving for a lower-cost state.

For a summary of the Zillow survey, which also delves into home-price expectations and other market issues, go here. A link to the full report is here.

-- Tom Petruno