Housing Supply Lower
Yet Abundant

The supply of homes available for sale in most major metropolitan areas declined in December but remains ample, new data show.

Total listings of homes in 29 metropolitan areas at the end of December fell 7.1% from a month earlier, according to figures compiled by ZipRealty Inc., a real-estate brokerage firm based in Emeryville, Calif. The data cover all listings of single-family homes, condominiums and town houses on local multiple-listing services in those areas, where Zip operates.

The decline is roughly in line with the usual pattern for December, when many potential sellers keep their homes off the market because of the holidays.

Total listings at the end of December were still up about 23% from a year earlier in the 17 metro areas for which comparable figures from December 2006 were available.

After surging in 2005 and 2006, the rise in inventories has slowed in some areas recently, and the number of homes on the market has declined from a year earlier in a few. Many sellers have become more flexible on price, and that should spur sales eventually, but foreclosures are adding more homes to the market.

In December, the biggest declines in listings from a month earlier were in the metro areas of Boston (down 13%), San Francisco (11%), Seattle (11%), Orange County, Calif. (10%) and Minneapolis (10%).

The Zip figures don't include the New York area. But data from Corcoran Group, a New York real-estate brokerage, show that December listings declined about 4% from a month earlier in Manhattan and 6.3% in Brooklyn.

The National Association of Realtors is due to announce today its monthly index of pending home sales and an update of its housing forecast.

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