iStock photo

A little uptick in a graph of new residential listings in Greater Boston could represent a flicker of hope for buyers and sellers alike.

According to data from brokerage and listings portal Redfin, sourced from multiple listings services, 747 new single-family houses and condominiums hit the market for the four-week period ending March 3.

That represented a 7.8 percent jump over the same period in 2023. It’s also the second week in a row where the numbers of new listings in the preceding four weeks diverged upwards from 2023’s trend line.

More homes available for sale, local market-watchers have said, will help get some sellers off the sidelines who’ve been reluctant to list out of fear of being unable to find a new home that meets their needs.

It mirrors a trend going on at the national level. Redfin reported Thursday that the number of listings that hit the market in the four weeks ending March 10 was up 13 percent year-over-year, the biggest jump since June 2021.

Listings portal Zillow reported an even bigger jump in a separate report Thursday: New listings of existing homes on Zillow were up 21 percent nation-wide in the month of February compared to last year.

The total number of homes for sale across the United States in February was up 12 percent, as well, to just over 900,000.

It’s not yet clear if the trend will prove durable, but Zillow economists say they have some theories.

“For more than a year, Zillow homeowner surveys have shown an elevated share of homeowners expecting to sell in the next three years. We’re finally beginning to see owners who have been putting off moves return to the market,” Skylar Olsen, chief economist at Zillow, said in a statement. “For many households with record-high equity, waiting out potentially lower rates later in the year may not be worth it.”

With the pulse of new homes on the market in Greater Boston, homes still went pending in eight days on average in February – five days faster than they did on average before the pandemic – while only 10.7 percent of listings showed price cuts, down from 11.9 percent in February of last year.

Part of that might be tied to the still-rock-bottom level of homes on the market in the region: Redfin data shows that for the four weeks ending March 3, the combined total of single-family homes and condos on the market in Greater Boston was 7.62 percent below the same period in 2023, and even below the same period in early 2022, when the home-buying frenzy was at its peak before Federal Reserve interest rates began to slow market activity.