Shoppers are gearing up for the spring home-buying season: Zillow

The housing market is heating up as the spring buying season approaches. Well-priced homes are selling fast, often within 29 days, and that time frame is bound to shorten as the shopping season opens, according to Zillow’s January market report. 

Meanwhile, other homes are lingering on the market for months and driving up the typical age of listings on Zillow to 72 days. To lure more buyers, sellers are coming to terms with the market conditions and are agreeing to apply price cuts to their homes. 

“There are slightly more homes for sale than this time last year, and there is still plenty of competition for well-priced houses,” Zillow chief economist Skylar Olsen said in a statement. “Buyers should prep their credit scores and sellers should prep their properties now, attractive listings are going pending in less than a month, and time on market will shrink in the weeks ahead.”

In January, one in five houses listed on Zillow included a price cut. Under certain conditions, shoppers can negotiate a better deal on a house that’s been sitting on the market for a long time. But Zillow reports that this scenario is unlikely to work in cities where the median time on the market has narrowed drastically year over year, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix or Seattle.

Price cuts are rare in expensive Western metros

Deals are drying up in metros such as Seattle, Las Vegas, Austin and San Jose, but new opportunities have emerged in Florida and Texas. Metros in these areas tend to have a less depleted housing supply. Phoenix also appeared as an abundantly supplied market in January, according to Zillow. 

Total inventory was up more than 3% from January 2023. Meanwhile, the flow of new listings to the market last month was up 43% from December and up 5.8% year over year.

Sellers are still holding a strong position in markets like San Diego, Miami and Riverside, California, where new listings are up by a respective 28%, 22% and 20% year over year.