Inventory, and lack thereof

Broker open houses are conducted on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with properties divided between those days according to which side of North Street they’re on. In “normal” times, the open house list for either day might be as long as three pages, and agents have to scramble to see a majority of them.

Here’s today’s entire open house list: 5 single-family homes, two condos (and two more condos in district 2a, which didn’t fit in the picture). At that, most are retreads, old listings that aren’t selling.

We’re almost in March, traditionally the month that sees the market enter its busiest phase. Of course, the COVID market hasn’t been dormant, or even slow for the past year, so we might not expect to see a huge surge in new listings, but surely, some.

These are tough times for those of us trying to find houses that might meet the particular needs of our buyers.