Us property sells before even appearing on major portals

Activity slowed down slightly in May, but the housing market is still moving so fast that many homes sold before ever appearing on the most popular real estate portal sites: an analysis of 10,000 broker-listed homes for sale that went under contract within one week found that 46 per cent never appeared as active listings on Zillow.com, while an additional 16 per cent appeared only after the home had gone under contract.

The research from Redfin ranks 22 markets across the country by the percentage of homes for sale that went under contract within 14 days of their debut. Thirty-two percent of homes went under contract within two weeks of their debut in May, a drop of 1.2 percentage points from April. This is the largest decrease since December 2012. For the same time period, 20 percent of homes went under contract within one week, a decrease of 1.1 percentage points.

The six fastest markets were all in California, followed by Denver, where 48% of listings went under contract within two weeks.

San Jose (Silicon Valley), CA was the fastest-moving market, with 58% of new listings going under contract within two weeks on the market. San Diego led the nation with the largest month-over-month increase in the rate of homes going under contract in 14 days, increasing from 46.7 percent in April to 50.

Philadelphia was the slowest market, with 9% of homes going under contract within two weeks, followed by the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham), NC, with 11% of homes selling that quickly.

Meanwhile, the San Jose, CA and Chicago markets slowed the most last month, with the rate of homes going under contract in 14 days in Chicago falling from 23.8 percent in April to 14.6 percent in May. San Jose dropped from 64.0 percent to 57.7 percent.

All 22 markets were still in seller's market territory, defined by having less than six months of supply. San Jose, CA had less than one month of supply.

One likely contributor to the slowdown was an increase in homes for sale, comments Redfin. Inventory grew 4.2 percent from April to May and 6.4 percent from March to April. Rising interest rates that occurred between May and June might mean further slowdowns are ahead. Redfin analysts are closely monitoring interest rates in conjunction with the company's proprietary homebuyer demand data.

Redfin suggests that homebuyers already in the market are being more aggressive in their pursuit for a home, while buyers at the very beginning of the process might be discouraged from entering the market.