Sep. 14—The housing market slightly flattened in August, but the Albuquerque metro area still remains relatively hot for homebuyers with a short supply of homes for sale.

The metro area's inventory of single-family detached homes stood at 1,275 in August — a year-over-year increase of nearly 6% and an increase of just 14 homes from July, according to a report this week from the Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors.

"There's hardly anything on the market," Lynn Johnson, a local real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty, said, adding that a healthy market tends to have more than 4,000 homes for sale.

Johnson, who has 30 years of realty experience, said the low inventory has kept the market hot, and said prospective homebuyers continue to flood in from out of state with Albuquerque's cheap cost of living.

August tends to be a month when the market cools off, with kids heading back to school and with parents tending to have busier schedules, leading to what is usually a month in which the number of new listings decreases. That is somewhat the case for the metro area, according to the GAAR report, as the number of new listings stood at 1,116. For comparison, the number of new listings in July was 1,292.

But home prices continue to be rather high in the metro area and, for now, show no signs of getting back to the prices of yesteryear. That's likely due to out-of-staters coming from states such as California, Arizona and New York with more cash in hand — which can lead to higher offers — for the purchasing of a home, Johnson said.

Other experts say home prices in the area are only stabilizing after a period of years when they — even for new builds — were largely lower than the national average.

All that to say, the median sales price stood at $330,000 last month, according to the report. That's a drop of more than $4,000 from July but is a year-over-year increase of nearly 11% when the median home price was $298,000.

The average days on the market in August increased to 16 from about 12 days in July, according to the report. And there were about 997 closed sales last month, a decrease of 17.3% year over year.

Mortgage rates have also climbed in recent months, standing at 5.89% for a 30-year fixed rate, according to Freddie Mac. But Johnson said although they have climbed, mortgage rates are still very low compared to, say, 20 years ago.

"People who want to buy should buy now because if you buy now, then you've locked in your housing costs for the next five to seven years," Johnson said. "I always say, marry the house and date the rate."