11:10 AM EDT, 07/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Rising home inventory in June and longer times spent on market are signaling a "slight" directional shift towards a buyer's market, News Corp.'s ( NWSA ) Realtor.com said in a Tuesday report.

The number of homes actively for sale climbed by nearly 37% in June from the same period one year earlier, reflecting inventory growth for an eighth consecutive month. The median home spent 45 days on market, up two days from June 2023 and rising on a year-over-year basis for the third month in a row in 2024, the report showed.

"While the quantity of homes on the market still trails pre-pandemic levels, home buyers are seeing more options to choose from as inventory increases," said Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. "The combination of more for-sale homes and longer time on the market is beneficial for home shoppers as they have more selection and don't need to feel as rushed in picking a place to call home."

Whether or not these factors lead to more home sales will depend on "how mortgage rates impact affordability in the second half of the year," she said. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.95% as of July 3, up from 6.86% a week earlier, according to the latest data from Freddie Mac.

Median list price per square feet rose 3.4% year over year last month while overall listing prices were unchanged at $445,000. New listings advanced by 6.3% and the share of active listings with price reductions increased 4.2 percentage points to 18.3% in June.

By region, inventory soared by nearly 49% year over year in the South and 37% in the West, with the Midwest and Northeast regions also logging double-digit gains. Compared with June 2023, list prices rose in all regions, except the South.

Pending home sales in the US unexpectedly declined sequentially in May as demand cooled, data from the National Association of Realtors showed at the end of June. Annually, the forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signing dropped a more-than-expected 6.6%, the association's report showed at the time.

Wedbush Securities remains cautious on homebuilders heading into the quarterly earnings season, which DR Horton (DHI) will kick off for the group on July 18, the brokerage wrote in a Tuesday note. Wedbush said it will be looking for signs that move-up and luxury demand momentum, which has outperformed its expectations this year, can maintain resilience in the coming two to three quarters.

Price: 28.31, Change: +0.21, Percent Change: +0.75