Check what the inventory number counts

Early in the episode, Tego opens the monthly Southwest MLS dashboard. Later, his supply slides use an active-inventory snapshot and three months of closings. A monthly average and a single-day count can differ even when both are describing inventory accurately.

Keep the geography, property type, price range, and measurement period together. That is also why the tool labels its weekly active-listing figures rather than silently replacing the figures in the show.

Why “buyer’s market” needs a little more detail

A buyer might have a long list of alternatives in one part of Rio Rancho, while another buyer struggles to find a home in their Albuquerque price range. Both can be describing the market accurately.

Tego’s point is that a metro average blends those experiences together. A seller’s advantage usually means fewer competing homes relative to demand. More available choices can give buyers room to compare, ask questions, and negotiate. Neither label tells you whether the payment fits your budget or whether a particular home is priced well.

The graphic he shared makes that separation especially clear: negotiating power and affordability are different questions.

Months of supply measures the balance, not a selling deadline

Counting listings tells us how much is available. To understand whether that is a lot or a little, we also need the pace of sales.

Months of supply divides active inventory by average monthly closed sales for the same market segment. If no new homes were listed and the recent sales pace continued, it estimates how long that supply would last. It does not predict how many months a particular home will take to go under contract.

In Tego’s November 4, 2026 example, 2,119 active detached listings divided by 694 average monthly closings produces about 3.1 months of supply. His slide uses detached homes in Bernalillo, Sandoval, and Valencia counties, with the sales pace measured over August–October.

That definition also explains why the live tool uses a different label for Altos’s Market Action Index. It is a supply-and-demand signal with its own scale, rather than a count of months. We keep it separate from inventory, active days on market, and asking-price reductions so each number answers the question it actually measures.

The same budget can face very different competition

The most revealing comparison in the episode holds the asking-price range steady: $500,000–$749,999 for detached homes. Albuquerque Acres West had 16 active listings and 20 recent closed sales. Rio Rancho North had 50 active listings and 24 recent closed sales.

With three months of closings in the calculation, Albuquerque Acres West came out to 2.4 months of supply. Rio Rancho North came out to 6.3. The greater supply in Rio Rancho North came from having many more listings relative to a similar recent sales count.

That is why a broad headline can be a poor starting point for an offer or a listing price. A buyer needs to know the alternatives to this home. A seller needs to know which homes compete for the same buyers.

The live tool applies that reasoning at the ZIP-code level. A $625,000 target, for example, may sit in a different price quarter in each ZIP. It displays both actual price spans so you can see that limitation. For an exact neighborhood and dollar range, the next step is a matching MLS analysis.

Price changes the picture, even before location does

Tracy brings examples from the Northeast Heights, Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, and Placitas into the conversation. Each has to be read with its own price range. Her narrower examples are useful precisely because they describe different slices of the market.

Tego then pulls the camera back to detached homes across the three counties. His price-range graphic moves from about 2.0 months of supply below $300,000 to 7.6 months at $1 million and above.

A relative price quarter in Altos is not a fixed dollar bracket. The most expensive quarter in one ZIP may overlap the middle of another. Read the actual ranges before deciding that two groups represent the same choices. The count matters, too: a small group can change sharply when only a few homes are listed or removed.

A price reduction doesn’t settle the home-value question

A seller can reduce an ambitious asking price while nearby completed sales or a broader home-value index show a different trend. Those observations measure different things.

The show’s illustration starts with a hypothetical $600,000 asking price, changes the ask to $550,000, and ends with a $545,000 sale. That sale is about 99.1% of the final ask, but 90.8% of the original ask. Choosing a different benchmark changes the story without changing the transaction.

For the live comparison, “asking price reduced” is a prompt to look more closely at pricing and condition. It does not establish how much a home is worth, how much a seller will accept, or how completed-sale values have changed.

Tego also opens the Zillow Home Value Index on the show. The September 2026 dashboard he displays reports an Albuquerque MSA annual increase of about 1.39%, alongside a monthly change of −0.37%. Those two readings can coexist.

Zillow describes ZHVI as a measure of typical home values. It is a different lens from the median asking price of the homes currently for sale. Looking at both can be useful; combining them into one claim about every home would go too far.

Watch or listen to the full conversation

Watch Albuquerque Real Estate Talk, Episode 605 ↗ · Tracy and Tego Venturi · Recorded November 4, 2026.