The inventory story that defined 2025 is quietly reversing. National active listings are on the edge of turning negative year-over-year for the first time in years — a structural shift with real consequences for buyers heading into spring.

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INVENTORY: FROM 33% GROWTH TO NEARLY FLAT

Mohtashami's tracker shows the pace of inventory expansion has collapsed from a peak of +33% year-over-year in 2025 to just +3.21% last week — and the direction is unmistakably downward. Weekly active listings ticked from 723,460 to 724,977 (April 3–10), compared to a jump from 691,173 to 702,436 in the same week last year. The seasonal pattern is still intact, but the gap is closing fast.

He's been flagging this inflection since mid-June 2025, noting that HousingWire's data tends to lead broader market data by 6–9 months. The thesis: when rates approach 6%, inventory growth stalls — sellers stay put, demand firms up, and the supply pipeline tightens. That dynamic is playing out now.

The Easter holiday added some noise to last week's print, but Mohtashami argues it doesn't change the trend. The harder story is the year-over-year comp structure: inventory surged in the first half of 2025, so the comparisons remain tough through mid-June. Once the calendar flips past those comps, a negative YoY print becomes the base case.

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THE RATE FACTOR: LOWEST CURVE SINCE 2022, DESPITE THE IRAN SHOCK

The Iran conflict pushed mortgage rates from 5.99% up toward 6.64% in recent weeks — a meaningful move, but not enough to break the broader trend. Mohtashami's key framing: 2026 has had the lowest mortgage rate curve the housing market has worked from since 2022, full stop. Even with the geopolitical spike, rates haven't breached 7%, which has historically been the threshold where inventory growth accelerates meaningfully as locked-in sellers stay locked in but demand-side pressure also softens.

Below 7%, a different dynamic holds: enough buyers are motivated to absorb supply without sellers being forced to list. That's where the market sits today.

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CLOSING SYNTHESIS

The 2025 inventory recovery — celebrated as a return toward healthier supply — is fading faster than most aggregated data sources yet show. Mohtashami's read is that the shift is already baked in; the lagging indicators just haven't caught up. If rates stay in the 6.5%–6.7% range and the Iran situation doesn't escalate further, negative year-over-year inventory readings at the national level could arrive as early as late Q2. For buyers, that means the window of relatively elevated supply may be shorter than it appears. For sellers, the leverage pendulum is quietly swinging back.

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TL;DR - Inventory growth is nearly gone: YoY active listing growth has compressed from +33% at 2025's peak to just +3.2% — negative national readings could arrive by mid-year. - Rate curve is the key variable: 2026 has seen the lowest mortgage rate environment since 2022; below 7%, inventory growth structurally underperforms vs. higher-rate periods. - Iran conflict is a wildcard, not a reversal: The geopolitical rate spike (5.99% → 6.64%) has delayed but not derailed the inventory tightening trend. - Data lag warning: Mohtashami flags that broader market data sources are 6–9 months behind — the supply shift is further along than most headline numbers suggest.

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• Logan Mohtashami (1)