MLS STATS 3/09-3/15/09

ACTIVE LISTINGS FALL BELOW 49,000!
PENDINGS, AWC STILL RISING SHARPLY
CLOSINGS BLOWING AWAY MARCH '08.

Sorry, I am a little late today with this, but it couldn't be helped.

PENDING: 10,625 ( +466 from last week)
PEND SINGLE FAM: 9,638 ( +411 from last week)

ACTIVE W/CONT: 1,842 ( +131 from last week)
AWC SINGLE FAM: 1,685 ( +123 from last week)

CLOSED 3/9-3/15 1,450 ( +170 from last week)
CLOSED SINGLE FAM: 1,324 ( +156 from last week)

CLOSED MTD (3/15) 2,804 March 15, 2008: 1,695
CLOSED SINGLE FAM MTD: 2,551 : 1,446

ACTIVE LISTINGS: 48,865
ACTIVE SINGLE FAM: 39,276



Nothing but good news this week on the resale front. Housing numbers are all headed in the right direction, with inventory falling and reaching another low point, pendings rising at a rapid rate, and being backed up by new contracts, as AWC reaches multi-year highs. We still have areas where prices are ridiculously low; I have talked to investors who are saying they can buy newer houses in places like Buckeye for $50,000-this is a huge drag on housing prices, but those kind of houses are not the norm, they are the exception. I really believe that you will see the prices of ready-to-live-in homes in solid neighborhoods start to solidify as inventory of these homes slip. I would make the point this way: when I remove all single family listings under $75,000, the inventory level falls to 35,516. Homes priced at that number are either very outlying, or are rehabs, fixups, or foreclosures that appear to be in bad shape. 35,000 homes when there are pending sales of almost 10,000 and new contracts of 1600 doesn't look that high. The inventory of good single family homes is coming back in line with no normal inventory levels. At the rate we are going, equilibrium is going to be a lot sooner than conventional wisdom is prepared for.

There is still a huge wave of negative sentiment out there, and with the mass media's help, that will be the case for quite a while into the recovery. I still have yet to see a story that talks about how much better we are doing this year than last year in the same time frames. The closest thing I saw was an article about how February sales were up, but due mostly to foreclosure sales. Its true foreclosures were up, but MLS sales are not foreclosure sales, and MLS stats were much stronger as well for February; I don't count them, only MLS sales. Newspaper articles tend to hew to the line of popular sentiment, catching the breeze of what people already feel; in spite of the positive news, we still see negativity everyday in the mass media. My guess is that a lot of smart investors will come and pick up homes this year, as broadbased sentiment will suppress home price longer than necessary.

I am looking at March sales and trying to draw a comparison with last year, but obviously if you checked the numbers, you see we are doing exceptionally well comparatively to last March. With the end of the month sales really dictating how well we do, we have three weeks left in this month. We are likely to see numbers into the high 6000's for sales, and quite possibly into the 7000's-and we are only in March! We have 5 traditionally excellent months ahead of us, and I really think that we will see drastic inventory drawdowns by July. It will be very difficult to say there is a resale glut on the market if single family falls into the low 30k's, which could happen very quickly if current trends are indicative of wher we are going. Keep your fingers crossed.

We are reaching a nadir for land demand and sales right now. Activity is pretty bad, as investors just don't have any urgency to buy. There are some fabulous deals to be had out there, and if you have interest in buying extemely low priced assets that even if all they do is return to 2004 levels in the next few years, you will have done exceptionally well. Lots in Scottsdale that were selling for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars can be had for the price of Wittman land. If you have interest in land, give me a call, and we can see if there is a opportunity buy available that might fit your comfort level as an investor. Thanks for reading!

chris