ARMLS CHANGES OVER DATA SYSTEM,
I am going to attempt the use of the new data system, so thoughtfully paid for by the members of MLS. They are charging us a boatload more, but I don't see the increased benefits at this point. I guess if you are selling houses it makes sense, some of these additional features make sense but I don't see the benefit at this point.
I don't know how the stats are going to transition; I am not completely familiar with the new system yet, as yesterday was the first day I looked at it. It may be that in order to keep statistics consistent, I may have to change the day I do this, or change the weekly tabulation date; I had been using monday to sunday, but I will have to see if that is possible.
Pending Sales: 7,310 ( -33 from last week)
Active W/Contingency: 1,407 ( -50 from last week)
Closed Escrow 7.21-7.27.08 1,177 ( -150 from last week)
Closed Month to Date (7.27.08) 4,215
Active Listings: 52,854 ( + 394 from last week)
Single Family Closed 7.21.-7.28 1,038 ( -145 from last week)
Single Family MTD 3,738
Single Family Active 43,311 ( +345 from last week)
The statistics seem to be fairly accurate, although I can just imagine some agents out there who haven't got the system figured out and so haven't entered pendings or closings. Its usually that way when a system changes. The numbers are fairly accurate, although I do think that the sales are a little low, and we may see that catch up by the end of the week as agents pick up the system and get current stats in. The historical stats are of course, unaffected.
We are behind last month's pace at the same date, which I expected, but we are ahead of last July's pace at the same date 3,850). We can probably expect to top 5,000 sales in the month, but will fall short of June's 5700 or so closings. Year over year improvement for the same date is what we are looking for, as seasonal variations now apply. 5000 isn't great, but it does show that properties are moving, despite the mortgage issues. We are going to see some benefit from the support of Fannie mae and freddie mac, and for those people who wish to take advantage of the $7500 tax credit for buying a new home between 08 and 09. If oil continues to fall, and optimism increases, I think we will find that homebuyers in this market are going to realize that buying a home is okay again. We won't have the greedy buying of 2005, and likely won't again for a generation, so don't expect to see those numbers again for a while. We will go back to being a moderately priced market for a buyer willing to live on the fringe of town, and have a brisk rate of sales for those who price decently.
I hadn't mentioned about the active listings yet. They have been a quirky number this month, but still haven't really made a move very far up or down, despite signalling they would. As I look back, it seems that we do at this time each month have short term build up of actives, as the pending sales are still included somehow, and we will drain it down following the heavy closings that occur at the end of the month. We will know next week if we shaved any volume off the listings. It doesn't look like we will get to 51000 this month, however. I think we could say we were healthy at 40000 listings, but it would be nice to be lower than that, so it looks to me that we still have a good year of either downward or drifting pricing pressures on values.
I may start adding some more useful stats like the average prices of homes sold, but I have to get a little more familiar with the system. I am not sure they had that loaded yet, as I kept drawing zeros in the stats when I looked into it.
I think this will still end up being a positive month for sales; it is not the breakout we would all like to see, but I don't think all the catalysts are there for that to happen yet. The housing bill will help, and some more positive economic news will help as well.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Housing News, Opinions
The housing news that came out today smashed the financial optimism on Wall Street. It doesn't look good nationally, but opinions differ around the financial world exactly how bad these numbers are. If you read my blog you know what the ARMLS numbers were in June. They were better than last June, and they were better than May. July won't be better than June, I don't think, but it will be better than July 07. That is improvement. Here is another interesting note from Jim Kramer of CNBC. He was not exactly an advocate of housing earlier this year. Not all people are looking at housing like the pariah anymore. There is a backstop with the housing bill that was passed, and there is even a decent tax credit for first time homebuyers of $7500.
Again, our market is a lot better than other markets, such as many in California, and we should consider ourselves to be in a market that is likely to recover quickly. Once we are able to shave 10K to 15K listings off our inventory, prices are going to firm up. With rates starting to rise, fence sitters are going to start getting nervous and will know that avoiding interest rates over 7% are better than the few thousands they think they may save by waiting to buy. This will happen.
Middle of the week quick read: There are nearly 7500 pending sales and almost 1500 AWC contracts out there...Sales should surpass 5000 for the month of July. Actives have fallen back into the 52800 range, and we may see them drop again at the end of the month into the 51000's.
chris
Again, our market is a lot better than other markets, such as many in California, and we should consider ourselves to be in a market that is likely to recover quickly. Once we are able to shave 10K to 15K listings off our inventory, prices are going to firm up. With rates starting to rise, fence sitters are going to start getting nervous and will know that avoiding interest rates over 7% are better than the few thousands they think they may save by waiting to buy. This will happen.
Middle of the week quick read: There are nearly 7500 pending sales and almost 1500 AWC contracts out there...Sales should surpass 5000 for the month of July. Actives have fallen back into the 52800 range, and we may see them drop again at the end of the month into the 51000's.
chris
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
ARMLS DATA 7/14/08-7/20/08
SALES UP FOR THE WEEK
PENDING AND AWC HAVE PEAKED AND REMAIN LEVEL
ECONOMIC NEWS WEIGHING HEAVY ON HOUSING RECOVERY
Pending Sales: 7343 ( -120 from last week)
Active/with Contingency: 1457 ( -12 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,462 ( +168 from last week)
Closed Escrows (Through 7/20) 1327 ( +348 from last week)
Closed Month To Date: (7/20) 3024
Single Family Sold: 1183
Single Family MTD: 2,684
Active Single Family: 42,966
Sales were up for the week, and we seem to be on track to get to 5,000 sales for the month, but the financial markets seem to be weighing down a strong recovery. Our pending and AWC contracts have peaked and have slid back slightly over the last several weeks, and imply that we are not going to improve our June sales-the best month we have had this year. July is going to be better than last July, almost assuredly, but it would have been nice to build on June sales. There is still a lot of talk about how difficult it is to get financing, as banks are being very cautious with their lending now. There also seems to be a large number of new listings coming on line, and I am wondering a bit if the number of active listings will fall this month at all. Foreclosures may be coming back on the market, and there are a fair amount of short sales out there as well.
The treasury secretary came out on sunday and gave less than an optimistic view on the idea of a quick recovery, but hopefully the shoring up of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will mean that conforming mortgages will have a market, and the lenders can let their breath out, and make the loans.
I am not as optimistic about a quick recovery in housing, as there seems to be such an overhang of inventory we just can't seem to make a dent in. The supply of homes on the market is still way to high, and our earlier gains in cutting inventory seem to be counter-balanced by more coming on line. We will probably still be selling 5000 homes a month for the next few, but I don't know that it is enough to really cut inventory.
PENDING AND AWC HAVE PEAKED AND REMAIN LEVEL
ECONOMIC NEWS WEIGHING HEAVY ON HOUSING RECOVERY
Pending Sales: 7343 ( -120 from last week)
Active/with Contingency: 1457 ( -12 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,462 ( +168 from last week)
Closed Escrows (Through 7/20) 1327 ( +348 from last week)
Closed Month To Date: (7/20) 3024
Single Family Sold: 1183
Single Family MTD: 2,684
Active Single Family: 42,966
Sales were up for the week, and we seem to be on track to get to 5,000 sales for the month, but the financial markets seem to be weighing down a strong recovery. Our pending and AWC contracts have peaked and have slid back slightly over the last several weeks, and imply that we are not going to improve our June sales-the best month we have had this year. July is going to be better than last July, almost assuredly, but it would have been nice to build on June sales. There is still a lot of talk about how difficult it is to get financing, as banks are being very cautious with their lending now. There also seems to be a large number of new listings coming on line, and I am wondering a bit if the number of active listings will fall this month at all. Foreclosures may be coming back on the market, and there are a fair amount of short sales out there as well.
The treasury secretary came out on sunday and gave less than an optimistic view on the idea of a quick recovery, but hopefully the shoring up of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will mean that conforming mortgages will have a market, and the lenders can let their breath out, and make the loans.
I am not as optimistic about a quick recovery in housing, as there seems to be such an overhang of inventory we just can't seem to make a dent in. The supply of homes on the market is still way to high, and our earlier gains in cutting inventory seem to be counter-balanced by more coming on line. We will probably still be selling 5000 homes a month for the next few, but I don't know that it is enough to really cut inventory.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
ARMLS DATA 7//7/08-7/13/08
PENDINGS REGAIN STRENGTH, AWC LEVEL OUT.
PENDING SALES: 7463 ( +358 from last week)
AWC Contracts: 1469 ( -28 from last week)
ACTIVE LISTINGS: 52,294 ( +11 from last week)
CLOSED ESCROWS 6/7 -6/13 979 ( -391 from last week)
Closed Month to Date (7/13/08) 1,671
Single Family Dwellings Sold this week: 884
SFD SOLD MONTH TO DATE: 1,476
Active SFD 42,853
Uneventful middle week of the month. Pending sales are back to a strong level that would indicate similar sales numbers to May and June. New AWC contracts are slightly lower, which may indicate the middle of the summer slowdown we will see in July and August. I don't anticipate July sales being better than June's, but they look to be better than last year's. I think we would see around 5,000 sales this month. If we do significantly better than that, great.
We are in a tough place nationally for news, with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae encountering some difficulties in the market this week, and IndyMac bank failing. I am going to lay that at the feet of the senator who caused the run on deposits for that bank. Thank Charles Schumer for that everyone. Regardless of your political leanings, that isn't exactly bright to shout "boo" behind a group of nervous people wandering down a dark road. His point is understood, IndyMac shouldn't have been leaning over the cliff; it doesn't mean he needed to push it completely over.
The financial news is going to eventually affect home sales, bottom line. How much is the question. We are in the recovery mode in Arizona, even if prices are still suffering. They are not going to go back up overnight, and we don't really want that. First time buyers have an opportunity to buy now at decent prices, and although it hurts someone, we still need the inventory cleared, and can't wait years for that to happen.
It is interesting that the percentage of single family dwellings is so high. Is the condo market dead? I haven't seen any indicators why that would be, but its very interesting because the overall ratio of single family homes on the market to sales of SFD is more favorable than the overall market. We only have about a 8.25 month supply of single family homes, while the overall ratio is well over 9 month supply. We are not that far away from a six month supply, which would be fairly acceptable- not a quickly moving market, but acceptable by national standards.
I am a little nervous about continuing growth in our sales. Obviously, the AWC is an indicator of new contracts, and it is slipping ever so slightly. It would be best if that grew, but I think it may be leveling out here as we have reached a seasonal point where sales have slowed in the past. It hasn't fallen far, and I think that means this month and probably next month will be okay, but the fall is difficult to project. The fall is usually weaker to begin with, and we don't know now that is going to look yet this year. Better than last year, I think, but last year was atrocious.
chris
PENDING SALES: 7463 ( +358 from last week)
AWC Contracts: 1469 ( -28 from last week)
ACTIVE LISTINGS: 52,294 ( +11 from last week)
CLOSED ESCROWS 6/7 -6/13 979 ( -391 from last week)
Closed Month to Date (7/13/08) 1,671
Single Family Dwellings Sold this week: 884
SFD SOLD MONTH TO DATE: 1,476
Active SFD 42,853
Uneventful middle week of the month. Pending sales are back to a strong level that would indicate similar sales numbers to May and June. New AWC contracts are slightly lower, which may indicate the middle of the summer slowdown we will see in July and August. I don't anticipate July sales being better than June's, but they look to be better than last year's. I think we would see around 5,000 sales this month. If we do significantly better than that, great.
We are in a tough place nationally for news, with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae encountering some difficulties in the market this week, and IndyMac bank failing. I am going to lay that at the feet of the senator who caused the run on deposits for that bank. Thank Charles Schumer for that everyone. Regardless of your political leanings, that isn't exactly bright to shout "boo" behind a group of nervous people wandering down a dark road. His point is understood, IndyMac shouldn't have been leaning over the cliff; it doesn't mean he needed to push it completely over.
The financial news is going to eventually affect home sales, bottom line. How much is the question. We are in the recovery mode in Arizona, even if prices are still suffering. They are not going to go back up overnight, and we don't really want that. First time buyers have an opportunity to buy now at decent prices, and although it hurts someone, we still need the inventory cleared, and can't wait years for that to happen.
It is interesting that the percentage of single family dwellings is so high. Is the condo market dead? I haven't seen any indicators why that would be, but its very interesting because the overall ratio of single family homes on the market to sales of SFD is more favorable than the overall market. We only have about a 8.25 month supply of single family homes, while the overall ratio is well over 9 month supply. We are not that far away from a six month supply, which would be fairly acceptable- not a quickly moving market, but acceptable by national standards.
I am a little nervous about continuing growth in our sales. Obviously, the AWC is an indicator of new contracts, and it is slipping ever so slightly. It would be best if that grew, but I think it may be leveling out here as we have reached a seasonal point where sales have slowed in the past. It hasn't fallen far, and I think that means this month and probably next month will be okay, but the fall is difficult to project. The fall is usually weaker to begin with, and we don't know now that is going to look yet this year. Better than last year, I think, but last year was atrocious.
chris
Monday, July 14, 2008
Pinal County updating General Plan
Pinal County is updating their General Plan for the growth areas of Pinal County. You can find a link of it here. There are some interesting things in this report. It is 239 pages long, worth looking through.
chris
chris
Builders looking at Turnaround?
We may be finally seeing signs that the "smart money" in real estate is sensing signs of a turnaround. Big builders are buying land-of course at vastly discounted prices . This is a very good sign that they are seeing some light in the next six months to a year. There are quite a few builders locally that I have talked to that have are looking for finished lots, as they have been able to buy them from other builders pretty reasonably.
chris
chris
chris
chris
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
MLS STATS 6/3/008 through 7/06/08
Quiet First Week of July; June Sales Figures Final tally at 5,763
Pending Sales: 7105 ( +192 from last week)
Active w/ Contingency: 1497 ( + 34 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,283 ( - 99 from last week)
Closed Escrows 6/30-7/6/08 1,452 ( - 42 from last week)
Closed month to Date 7/6/08: 670
A very quiet week due undoubtedly due to the Fourth of July Holiday and also being the first week of the month, as per usual. Pending Sales have bounced back nicely, but we have reached a AWC plateau in the short term. There seems to be just a slight bit of elasticity upwards over 1500, but that seems to be a resistance point. However, The pending and AWC numbers at these levels would support significant increases in sales over the second half of last year, so we are definitely on a better track. Sales last July and August were 4,683 and 4,302 respectively. We are on a trend to beat those numbers, and hopefully that trend will continue.
Listings declined somewhat in the past week. Hopefully that is a continuing trend, but I am hearing that there are some significant amount of listings coming on line through banks. We will see how that affects listings. If we can continue to stay in the 5K sales range, we will be doing better than all of the second half of last year, and should show some improvement.
2007 MONTHLY SALES ARMLS -TOTAL: July 4,683
August 4,302
September 3,375
October 3,431
November 3,313
December 3,341
As you can see, the bar is not very high for increasing sales, but by posting month over month gains, and year over year gains, we will be able to start changing the psychology of the potential buyer out there, and encourage future purchasing behavior. We are definitely in a position to start blowing by last year's numbers, but I can almost assure you that the news will then focus on how we are not doing as well as 2006 or 2005. It is inevitable they will do that.
I am working on a chart for the first half of the year, but have had some sizing glitches posting it, but will attempt to get that rectified and get it posted.
Pending Sales: 7105 ( +192 from last week)
Active w/ Contingency: 1497 ( + 34 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,283 ( - 99 from last week)
Closed Escrows 6/30-7/6/08 1,452 ( - 42 from last week)
Closed month to Date 7/6/08: 670
A very quiet week due undoubtedly due to the Fourth of July Holiday and also being the first week of the month, as per usual. Pending Sales have bounced back nicely, but we have reached a AWC plateau in the short term. There seems to be just a slight bit of elasticity upwards over 1500, but that seems to be a resistance point. However, The pending and AWC numbers at these levels would support significant increases in sales over the second half of last year, so we are definitely on a better track. Sales last July and August were 4,683 and 4,302 respectively. We are on a trend to beat those numbers, and hopefully that trend will continue.
Listings declined somewhat in the past week. Hopefully that is a continuing trend, but I am hearing that there are some significant amount of listings coming on line through banks. We will see how that affects listings. If we can continue to stay in the 5K sales range, we will be doing better than all of the second half of last year, and should show some improvement.
2007 MONTHLY SALES ARMLS -TOTAL: July 4,683
August 4,302
September 3,375
October 3,431
November 3,313
December 3,341
As you can see, the bar is not very high for increasing sales, but by posting month over month gains, and year over year gains, we will be able to start changing the psychology of the potential buyer out there, and encourage future purchasing behavior. We are definitely in a position to start blowing by last year's numbers, but I can almost assure you that the news will then focus on how we are not doing as well as 2006 or 2005. It is inevitable they will do that.
I am working on a chart for the first half of the year, but have had some sizing glitches posting it, but will attempt to get that rectified and get it posted.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
MLS Stats 6/23-6/29
June Sales Surpass June '07!
June Sales Surpass May '08!
Preliminary Figures show 5,732 gross MLS Closings!
Weekly MLS Stats 6-23 though-6-29
Sorry, I got a little late start today, but the good news is that we had a great week, and while Monday the 30th are not included in the weekly sales, we have safely surpassed the critical figure of June 07, marking the first year over year improvement. That is a benchmark, and I am very happy about that. I will dive into the single family home sales component as well, but first, lets get the weekly numbers out of the way:
Pending Sales: 6913 ( -693 from last week)
Active with Contingency: 1,463 ( -85 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,382 ( -603 from last week)
Closed Escrows 6-23 to 6-29 1,494 ( +322 from last week)
Closed Month to Date (6/29) 4,965
Closed Month of June (preliminary) 5733 ( +328 from June '07)
( +101 from May '08)
Single Family Homes Sold in June: 5,069 +198 from May'08
Single Family Listings 7/1/08 42,907
Single Family Supply: 8.46 months
Okay, where to start...June was a very good month given our last year. Psychologically, it is important that we finally did get a monthly increase year over year, as it hasn't happend for probably three years. (April was supposedly, but as you may recall there was the fiasco including the foreclosure sales and bank repos) These are legitimate MLS sales, and as such, I mark this as an important step to the recovery. It is also worth noting that we eclipsed May's sales figures as well, so we get a two for one on the improvement front. June is a fair month, but May has run better in the past, except for the boom years, which were more attributable to a rising market event than normalcy, so it is a sign of relative strength. Single family home sales in June were also better than May's which is another great sign.
This is a very nice development, as due to the number of pendings and active with contingencies still on the books, it looks like we are probably going to pace ahead of the next few months in sales as well, giving us a very nice improvement over last year. I won't speak to more than a quarter out, as the economy is fragile, or at least the news leads us to believe that, and we could have a slowdown in the next few months. But its foreseeable that July will be a good month, and August as well, given the number of contracts already in play.
Not everything was rosy, however. We still see that the number of active listings, while they did slide, did not slide as far as hoped. That means there were a fair amount of listings that came on the market. While we still bit into the listings, we really only cleared about 500 off for a month, it appears. That number is funny, because it doesn't appear to track well with the closed sales or pendings exactly, and so I don't know how they calculate it. The new system will be different I suppose, so I am not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it.
So far the bad news, that was just about it. We haven't reached the sales levels of 2003 yet, but we are doing a heck of a lot better.
I will be putting up a chart of the activity at some point this week. I wanted to include June into the chart, which I can do now. We have reached the halfway point of the year, and we are continuing to do better, although we have a little ways to go to be in a strong market again. A 25% increase in sales would be an excellent long term monthly sales number, but I think we are a ways from achieving that yet. The status of the Housing rescue plan will have a lot to do with that. There is a $8000 first time homebuyer tax credit included in that bill, which has not yet passed, that will encourage some purchasing next year. I don't have all the details on that yet, but it would be a step in the right direction to get people motivated again. In the meantime, we do have some definite signs of strength in our market, even if the national market is not doing better yet.
Chris Just
June Sales Surpass May '08!
Preliminary Figures show 5,732 gross MLS Closings!
Weekly MLS Stats 6-23 though-6-29
Sorry, I got a little late start today, but the good news is that we had a great week, and while Monday the 30th are not included in the weekly sales, we have safely surpassed the critical figure of June 07, marking the first year over year improvement. That is a benchmark, and I am very happy about that. I will dive into the single family home sales component as well, but first, lets get the weekly numbers out of the way:
Pending Sales: 6913 ( -693 from last week)
Active with Contingency: 1,463 ( -85 from last week)
Active Listings: 52,382 ( -603 from last week)
Closed Escrows 6-23 to 6-29 1,494 ( +322 from last week)
Closed Month to Date (6/29) 4,965
Closed Month of June (preliminary) 5733 ( +328 from June '07)
( +101 from May '08)
Single Family Homes Sold in June: 5,069 +198 from May'08
Single Family Listings 7/1/08 42,907
Single Family Supply: 8.46 months
Okay, where to start...June was a very good month given our last year. Psychologically, it is important that we finally did get a monthly increase year over year, as it hasn't happend for probably three years. (April was supposedly, but as you may recall there was the fiasco including the foreclosure sales and bank repos) These are legitimate MLS sales, and as such, I mark this as an important step to the recovery. It is also worth noting that we eclipsed May's sales figures as well, so we get a two for one on the improvement front. June is a fair month, but May has run better in the past, except for the boom years, which were more attributable to a rising market event than normalcy, so it is a sign of relative strength. Single family home sales in June were also better than May's which is another great sign.
This is a very nice development, as due to the number of pendings and active with contingencies still on the books, it looks like we are probably going to pace ahead of the next few months in sales as well, giving us a very nice improvement over last year. I won't speak to more than a quarter out, as the economy is fragile, or at least the news leads us to believe that, and we could have a slowdown in the next few months. But its foreseeable that July will be a good month, and August as well, given the number of contracts already in play.
Not everything was rosy, however. We still see that the number of active listings, while they did slide, did not slide as far as hoped. That means there were a fair amount of listings that came on the market. While we still bit into the listings, we really only cleared about 500 off for a month, it appears. That number is funny, because it doesn't appear to track well with the closed sales or pendings exactly, and so I don't know how they calculate it. The new system will be different I suppose, so I am not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it.
So far the bad news, that was just about it. We haven't reached the sales levels of 2003 yet, but we are doing a heck of a lot better.
I will be putting up a chart of the activity at some point this week. I wanted to include June into the chart, which I can do now. We have reached the halfway point of the year, and we are continuing to do better, although we have a little ways to go to be in a strong market again. A 25% increase in sales would be an excellent long term monthly sales number, but I think we are a ways from achieving that yet. The status of the Housing rescue plan will have a lot to do with that. There is a $8000 first time homebuyer tax credit included in that bill, which has not yet passed, that will encourage some purchasing next year. I don't have all the details on that yet, but it would be a step in the right direction to get people motivated again. In the meantime, we do have some definite signs of strength in our market, even if the national market is not doing better yet.
Chris Just
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