Why aren't there any houses to buy?

Mortgage rates are rising, and the housing market appears to be softening nationwide. But in many U.S. markets, would-be buyers are facing a big problem: there's just nothing to buy.

- By Alana Semuels

Housing inventory-the number of homes on the market-has been falling since the rebound from the Great Recession, as investors snapped up homes and more older Americans decided to age in place.

Some housing analysts predicted that inventory would start to climb as builders scrambled to finish more new homes. But in markets where there's not a lot of new construction, inventory is hovering near historic lows, according to data crunched by Redfin and provided to TIME.

"I don't think I've ever seen it this bad," says Becky Koladis, who has been a real estate agent in Hartford, Conn., for 23 years. In December, Hartford had just 1.4 months of housing supply, meaning it would take just 1.4 months to sell all the homes on the market at the current pace of demand; in February 2019, by contrast, it had 5.9 months' supply. In decades past, economists would say that a balanced housing market has four to six months of supply.