Happy Holidays to all! I would like to start making some more general commentary on the site here, and will make an effort to do so in the the new year, once I get settled into a little better pattern. There is a lot of economic news that I think warrants our attention, and is probably a little more directly linked to the land market then the techy MLS stats that I riff on currently, but I do see this topic as one of the leading indicators for the land market. I will try to get to some of those topics in the future. For now, here are the stats for the week.
Pending Sales: 3,828 ( -118 from last week)
Pending + AWC 4256 ( -119 from last week)
Closed Escrows: 819 ( +273 from last week)
Active Listings: 55,863 ( -473 from last week)
Okay, just a few observations. We are right in the middle of the Holiday season, and that has a lot of effect on the numbers. Interestingly, most of the numbers we are looking at here are doing the right thing. The closed escrows last week was a little bit of a surprise. The pending contracts is down, but it also is not down as far as the increase of closed escrows, meaning there were new contracts replacing those that sold. A good sign. It is also nice to see that the active listings is sliding with some consistency now, whether people are just taking homes off the market or we reached some apex in over-supply, and are now coming off that number permanently, I am not sure, and will not likely know until sometime in first quarter. Still, I think the highest number of actives that I recorded was 57,940 this fall, and we have fallen 3.5% below that total. Not a huge drop, but a 3.5% drop in traditionally the worst quarter of the year gives me some hope. This is where we might start seeing some better looking number in first quarter. An increase in sales to 5000 a month means we could start seeing a reduction in the supply from a 17 month supply to under a 10 month supply within first quarter. The supply burn rate at 5000 homes could go from a 1000 a month to 3000-4000 a month, getting us down into the 40,000's, which would be the harbinger of equalizing the market. This is not an overnight process, but if we can come out of first quarter in the 40,000-45000 actives, I think we could start breathing again. Those are my thoughts on the matter.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
12/03/07-12/09/07 Weekly MLS Statistics; land investing article...
Good Morning!
First week of December figures are out. Nothing exciting; these are typical of the past few months, which are typically sluggish. The amount of pendings and new contracts is likely to slow down, as we don't see a lot of closings planned before the end of the year. I like that they are holding pace with October/November Sales. If December can hold its ground, than we can expect First quarter to be better.
Pending Sales: 3946 ( +112 from last week)
Pending + AWC: 4375 ( + 89 from last week)
Closed Escrows: 546 ( -614 from last week)
Active Listings: 56336 ( -113 from last week)
Closed escrows is always down after the end of a month, so nothing to get excited about. Its actually not a bad number. The pending have risen, so that is showing some positive momentum going into the late holiday season. The amount of Active listings is sliding a bit, which is encouraging, but that number could shoot up after the first of the year when many homes go on the market traditionally, so I am a little guarded about that one. We have shaved well over a 1000 listings in the last two weeks, though, so it is good, if only temporary news. However, as first quarter is traditionally a stronger buying period, home sales could start eating away at the listings, even if there is a little bit of a rush of homes to market in January. I do think that much of the surge of homes has already hit the market, so we may not see any surge at all. Its hard to tell, though, about the mortgage problem. Hopefully we have seen the worst of the listing surge.
I also found this article very interesting....it is interesting that we are seeing news about these things now. I do think that there will be land buyers out there testing the waters again in early 2008. They will be looking for the best deals they can find, of course, but I do think we will start seeing some activity, if home sales continue to strengthen in the early parts of first quarter.
New home builders will recover first, as I have said. The sales for the year are lagging 2007 substantially, especially due to a poor third quarter, but the sales have been consistent, and it looks like that was maybe the baseline for sales, and we will see that number go higher in the new year, as prices and mortgage rates have fallen substantially, and mortgage availability is a little more consistent again, at least for entry level priced homes.
First week of December figures are out. Nothing exciting; these are typical of the past few months, which are typically sluggish. The amount of pendings and new contracts is likely to slow down, as we don't see a lot of closings planned before the end of the year. I like that they are holding pace with October/November Sales. If December can hold its ground, than we can expect First quarter to be better.
Pending Sales: 3946 ( +112 from last week)
Pending + AWC: 4375 ( + 89 from last week)
Closed Escrows: 546 ( -614 from last week)
Active Listings: 56336 ( -113 from last week)
Closed escrows is always down after the end of a month, so nothing to get excited about. Its actually not a bad number. The pending have risen, so that is showing some positive momentum going into the late holiday season. The amount of Active listings is sliding a bit, which is encouraging, but that number could shoot up after the first of the year when many homes go on the market traditionally, so I am a little guarded about that one. We have shaved well over a 1000 listings in the last two weeks, though, so it is good, if only temporary news. However, as first quarter is traditionally a stronger buying period, home sales could start eating away at the listings, even if there is a little bit of a rush of homes to market in January. I do think that much of the surge of homes has already hit the market, so we may not see any surge at all. Its hard to tell, though, about the mortgage problem. Hopefully we have seen the worst of the listing surge.
I also found this article very interesting....it is interesting that we are seeing news about these things now. I do think that there will be land buyers out there testing the waters again in early 2008. They will be looking for the best deals they can find, of course, but I do think we will start seeing some activity, if home sales continue to strengthen in the early parts of first quarter.
New home builders will recover first, as I have said. The sales for the year are lagging 2007 substantially, especially due to a poor third quarter, but the sales have been consistent, and it looks like that was maybe the baseline for sales, and we will see that number go higher in the new year, as prices and mortgage rates have fallen substantially, and mortgage availability is a little more consistent again, at least for entry level priced homes.
Monday, December 3, 2007
MLS WEEKLY SALES NOV 26-DEC 2
Weekly MLS STATISTICS Nov 26th- Dec 2
Pending Sales 3834 ( -361 from last week)
Pending + AWC 4286 ( -415 from last week)
CLOSED ESCROWS 1160 ( +597 from last week)
Active Listings 56449 ( -929 from last week)
This week only tells us a few things. This was an end of the year week, so the number of sales would be relatively high. They were higher than I expected which led to an excellent finish for November Sales of 3277. The amount of pendings is down, as is normal when a large amount of closings occur. The number of new AWC's shows a healthy number of new contracts. December is not expected to be a strong month for sales, but so far is shaping up just like November, which was really better than expected. Not exceptional, but getting better. Even better, there was a significant reduction in the amount of Active Listings, over 900 less. That shows that the tide of homes going on the market is lessening, and maybe just maybe that number can start coming down. If we see that number under 50,000 by the end of January, we can start talking about a recovery trend. It is still a little premature to talk about that yet.
Pending Sales 3834 ( -361 from last week)
Pending + AWC 4286 ( -415 from last week)
CLOSED ESCROWS 1160 ( +597 from last week)
Active Listings 56449 ( -929 from last week)
This week only tells us a few things. This was an end of the year week, so the number of sales would be relatively high. They were higher than I expected which led to an excellent finish for November Sales of 3277. The amount of pendings is down, as is normal when a large amount of closings occur. The number of new AWC's shows a healthy number of new contracts. December is not expected to be a strong month for sales, but so far is shaping up just like November, which was really better than expected. Not exceptional, but getting better. Even better, there was a significant reduction in the amount of Active Listings, over 900 less. That shows that the tide of homes going on the market is lessening, and maybe just maybe that number can start coming down. If we see that number under 50,000 by the end of January, we can start talking about a recovery trend. It is still a little premature to talk about that yet.
November MLS Sales
November sales figures are in, and they offer some encouraging signs. They are not as good as October, as expected, but as of Monday night, when most closings should have been reported for November, closed sales tallied 3,277 homes in the MLS system. Somewhat less than October, but a better finish than I had hoped from last week's tally. I do think December is going to be slower, but November sales do show that our market has some resiliency, and while me may not know until after January whether thinks are going to continue improving, I am starting to believe that the worst may be over.
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