Chester County’s residential real estate market is still characterized by inadequate supply and rising demand. Michaelle Bond unlocked the economic significance of local housing supply data for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The imbalance is so significant that the current, in-county housing supply has dropped to 15 days. “Housing supply” is the rate at which available properties would evaporate from the market without a continual stream of new homes to replace them.

Such inadequate supply, combined with rising demand, has continued to fuel buyer competition and push area prices further up.

The monthly supply of inventory has been going down in Chester County for years.

• January 2013: 5.9-month supply
• January 2015: 4.6-month supply
• January 2020: 2.1-month supply
• January 2022: 0.5-month supply

A supply of six months’ inventory (more or less) is considered a balanced market.

The number of pending sales, 414 last month, was also down compared with the two previous years by 26.9 percent in January 2021 and 23.8 percent in January 2020.

Read more about the county’s residential real estate market in The Philadelphia Inquirer.