On a holiday drive through Lawrence you’ll now see more than Christmas lights and flying reindeer. (What? I suppose you are the type that leaves a fire in the fireplace on Christmas Eve.)

These days you might even see some homes for sale.

Finding very many homes for sale in Lawrence has been tricky for a number of years, but the latest numbers from the Lawrence Board of Realtors show the situation is improving. Realtors often measure home supply by calculating how long the number of homes on the market would last based on how quickly homes are currently selling.

In November, Lawrence had two months worth of homes on the market using those calculations. That was the second month in a row that the Lawrence housing market hit that threshold. The last time Lawrence had two such months was in April and May of 2020, according to a review of past Lawrence Board of Realtors data.

“The housing market is a little more appealing for homebuyers as we head into 2024,” Lawrence Board of Realtors President Brian Johnson said in the group’s monthly report.

There were 145 homes on the market in November, up from 104 in 2022 and 99 in 2021.

But the positive numbers on the inventory front are coming as the Lawrence market produces ugly numbers elsewhere. The ugliest: The number of homes sold.

Lawrence is on pace in 2023 to have a 25% drop in home sales from a year ago. Home sales were down 22% in November and are now down 24% for the entire year. Through the first 11 months of the year, Lawrence real estate agents have sold 264 fewer homes than they did during the same period in 2023. Home sales are down an even larger 32% — or nearly 400 homes — from 2021 levels.

With home sales plummeting by such amounts, you would think housing prices would be falling too. You would be wrong, but you could at least argue you are kind of right. Housing prices aren’t falling, but they also aren’t increasing nearly as fast as they once did.

Thus far in 2023, the median selling price of a Lawrence home has increased by 5.2% from a year ago. So, prices are still clearly rising, but that 5.2% increase was far below the 10.7% increase posted in 2022 and the 11.1% in 2021. If you are concerned about Lawrence’s housing affordability problem, you should welcome that news. But, you should cringe at the next set of numbers. In 2021, the median selling price of a Lawrence home during the first 11 months of the year was $262,000. Thus far in 2023, it is $305,000.

Home prices are remaining high because, even though inventories are improving, they are still at historically low levels. The two-month supply of homes is still only half of the four-month supply that most real estate agents say is needed for a balanced market between buyers and sellers. At two months supply, sellers still have the upper hand.

But, there are other signs that might slowly be changing. The median number of days a home sat on the market before selling in November was 13 days. For most of the year, that median has been between five and seven days.

There’s also a sign that home sales may rally just a bit to close the year. The number of pending contracts on the books at the end of November was 33% higher than a year ago. Those pending contracts normally turn into sales in one or two months, so it is possible we could post a monthly increase in December or maybe January.

That would make some sense given the mortgage market. Mortgage rates are still higher than they have been since the mid-2000s, but they are about a percentage point lower than they were a month ago.

“These are more favorable market conditions,” Johnson said in the Realtors’ monthly report.