First-time buyers, housing inventory expected to rebound by 2024

The housing market is expected to return to pre-pandemic, 2019 norms — at least in terms of inventory and the share of purchases made by first-time home buyers — by 2024, according to a panel of housing market experts polled in the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey.

The dwindling supply of homes for sale has been a key driver of the recent explosion in U.S. home values, which have risen 32 percent in the past two years. Total inventory has fallen from a monthly average of 1.6 million units in 2018 and 2019 to slightly more than 1 million in 2021, and monthly figures in 2022 are lower still.

Inventory should return to a monthly average of 1.5 million units or higher in 2024, according to the largest group (38 percent) of respondents to Zillow’s survey. But many are more optimistic — the second-largest group (36 percent) believes supply will bounce back to pre-pa