MLS STATS 8/18-8/24

Weekly Sales Down, August to be lower than July Sales
Pending Sales Climbing Again, Active listings falling slightly


Pending Sales: 7,255 ( +221 from last week)

AWC: 1,091 ( +10 from last week)

Closed Escrows (as of 8/24) 1,114 ( -142 from last week)

Closed MTD (8/24) 3,685 (3,801 as of July 24, '08)

Active Listings: 52,408 ( -98 from last week)


SINGLE FAMILY QUICK STATS

Pending: 6,512 ( +206 form last week)

Closed Escrows: 990 (-150 from last week)

Closed MTD: 3,308

Active: 42,955 ( -78 from last week)


Just a few quick thoughts about this week's stats. Sales should end up the month okay, but are going to be less than July. That is somewhat negative news, but that is seasonal adjustment components as well. We should end up in the 5,000's somewhere; not great but better than last August by a long way. (August 07- 4,307 Closed) This is encouraging that our bottom locally may have happened last summer.

Pending Sales have rebounded a bit, after struggling near the 7000 level for a while; hopefully this will continue. I have little faith in the AWC numbers; I don't think agents are entering them in the same manner as in the previous system, so that statistic as a measuring device may be a casualty of the new MLS system. ARMLS already knows my thoughts about this new system and how little additional utility we get out of it for a ridiculous bump in fees while we are in a soft market, but most of you aren't interested in that.

We are running slightly behind July 08, figures, intimating that are sales will fall short of last month. Barring some unforeseen sales surge, I think that will hold up and we will fall short of July.

Actives are slipping a bit, and its possible we could see it fall into the 51K's at the end of August. For this number to really fall, it will require a big jump in sales, which is not likely to happen in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter is not traditionally a strong home sales quarter in Arizona, so we may have to wait until next year for something that looks like a recovery. A consistent drop in inventory would be the goal for the end of the year. The actual sales numbers will be better than last year, but they will likely be lackluster. If we were to fall into the high 40K's in overall listings, and in to the high 30k's for single family listings, I think we could look on that as success going into the new year.

I should also mention the national housing news, as it has been in the media this week. Resales climbed 3.1% in July nationally, a very nice increase that I was expecting based on our strong local performance. It is being spun badly in the news, with the authors focusing on falling prices. I have addressed this before, but I would much rather see falling prices than no sales. There was a report on Fox business channel yesterday in chicago about a formerly nice home that couldn't be sold for $119K, and because it didn't sell, thieves stripped it of all saleable materials-wiring, pipes, appliances, etc. The house is now for sale for $11K. It is ruined. We don't encounter that as much here because our market at least has some forward progression. I am thankful for that. The falling prices are distressing certainly, and sometimes devastating for the individual, but for the market as a whole, it is adapting here, and while we may see some falling prices still, our market is getting healthier. The price drops were inevitable in some submarkets, but we are selling more homes than we were before, so that means more people believe in the market than they did a year ago at this time.

The other news is that new homes sales numbers were also up nationally, in a sign that there is some pent-up demand among those buyers who were shut out in the 2005 spike. There are some exceptional deals in new homes now, rates are low, and I think people are finally realizing it. The tax credit of $7500 is only going to help first time homebuyer sales in the near future, and we may experience a mini-spike in entry home markets in the next two quarters, although I am skeptical that it is enough to move the market substantially.

Builder inventory in the valley has been falling for months, and most are running pretty lean. They are not big contributors to the glut of homes right now, but they are sitting on a wealth of lots that they would like to build on. I think some more trimming in resale inventory is needed before builders start recovering now. I had always been of the belief that builders would recover first, but I think the high price of gasoline has prevented this from happening. Cheap, not just reasonable, but flat out low cost new housing exists on the fringes of Phoenix in Maricopa, especially, but the cost of driving for many people cancels out the bargain these homes provide. New homes starting in the $90k's in Maricopa is just flat out ridiculous, but there has not been a huge sales trend with these homes. It probably doesn't help that financing is tougher, but these events have conspired to blunt the impact of these low priced homes in the recovery effort.

My impression is that we are still six months away from the market looking healthy enough to call a recovery underway, but we are locally at least moving in the right direction.

ARMLS DATA 8/11-8/17

Weekly Sales Up, Single family making up large part of sales
Inventory slips slightly



Pending Sales: 7,034 ( +16 from Last Week)

Active W/ Contingency 1,081 ( -44 from Last Week)

Closed Escrows: 1,256 (+248 from Last Week)

Closed MTD 8/17/08 2,568

Active Listings: 52,506 (-153 from last week)


Single Family Quick Stats


Pending Sales: 6,306 ( +24 from last week)

AWC 1,003 ( N/A)

CLOSED ESCROWS: 1,140 ( N/A)

CLOSED MTD: 2,312

Active SFD: 43,033 ( -87 from last week)


Weekly sales were strong again; August is setting up to be a solid, but not spectacular month. Should beat last years, but maybe not July's sales. It seems as far as pendings go, they are going to hover around 7,000; not their peak of the summer, but not too bad either. Inventory is still way to high, but single family sales are making up a high percentage of total sales, and that is a good sign. That is just over 8 months of single family inventory, going by July sales. 5-6 months is not a seller's market, but it would be considered equilbrium in many markets. Not here, traditionally, but in many markets.

I don't think that we can look at AWC numbers in the same light as in the old MLS system; I don't think the stat contains the same data, so we will just have to adjust our thinking about it over time. It appears to run lower than under the marketlinx system.

This is a middle week of the month, which doesn't really tell us alot, except that we have had consistent weekly sales so far this month. The month sets up where we lose the last two days of the month to the weekend, so it might affect overall sales this month negatively. I am optimistically hoping for 5500 sales, if the trending of the last few months can be believed.

Homes Sales on the Rise in Pinal County, as prices fall

Another sign the market is working; it may not be to everyone's advantage, but I am encouraged that the market is turning around when you see increasing home sales, despite the challenges being faced by buyers, specifically in borrowing. This article in the Arizona Republic details encouraging signs about housing in Pinal County.

MLS STATS 8/4 through 8/10/08

Sorry about missing Tuesday; I had some work to do out of town and it couldn't be helped.


Pending Sales: 7018 ( +400 from last week)

Active with Contingency 1125 ( Last week n/a-Not sure this is valid stat)

Closed Escrows: 1008 ( -1015 from last week)

Closed Month To Date: 1300

Active Listings: 52,659 ( +88 from last week)





SINGLE FAMILY QUICK STATS


Pending Sales: 6,282 ( Last week-N/A)

Active Listings: 43,120 (+53 from last week)

Closed MTD: 1,167


A solid, if unspectacular week. Our pendings are rebuilding after the strong end of July, but the active listings are not falling. I don't trust these stats implicitly; it seems that active still contain AWC as well, even though they are supposed to be seperated in the stats. I don't know for sure, as the only time we get drops in Actives are at the end of the month when there is a huge drop in pendings; I think it may be that some agents classify the AWC as pendings and therefore they go straight from AWC to closed instead of going through pendings. I don't really know, but I am looking for a solution as to why that is.

I am encouraged to see that a large share of closings are still single family homes; if we could pare that number down, at the same time sales rises, we will get back to a market equilbirium much sooner. I think we may not have as many sales in August as July, however. The pendings don't really point that way, as forward looking activity has slowed slightly. It could be because the new MLS system and agents unfamiliarity with it, but it looks like pendings are off their peak, as are AWC.

There was a good article in the AZ Republic concerning some positive signs in the local housing market. You can read it here. Foreclosures may be flattening out. Good article.

I am going to be running late on the stats Today...

I won't be putting up stats until this evening, as I am engaged in some work away from the office today. I will get the stats out as soon as I am able to.

chris just

just land consultants

JULY SALES IN, INVENTORY SLOW TO FALL

July Sales TOP June-Blows away last July!

These are numbers extracted from the NEW MLS system, which I am not 100% sure of its accuracy yet, but the numbers I am seeing are not inherently unbelievable. The pendings are low, but we did have a big last week of July. I am not sure that all agents have quite figured out the system yet, and that can delay entry into the system of certain statistics. I do think they are pretty much in line with where they should be. The Active with Contingency stat is not working on the new system. They have three different categories of "AWC", but all three total 267, so either agents don't know how to enter it yet, or it just does not function the same way as the old system, and we won't be using it. Either way, the 267 is not accurate, so I am not putting it in.


Pending Sales: 6,618 ( -692 from last week)

Active With Contingency: N/A ( Last Week, 1,407)

Closed 7.28.08-8.3.08: 2,023 ( +846 from last week)

Closed Month to Date: 293

Active Listings: 52,571* ( -283 from last week)

SINGLE FAMILY STATS

Single Family Closed: 1,806 ( +786 from last week)

Single Family MTD: 268

Active Listings: 43,067 ( -244 from last week)


JULY STATS

JULY CLOSED ESCROWS: 6,033 June 08 ( 5,763)
July 07 ( 4683)

Single Family Homes: 5,355 June 08 (5065)
July 07 (3834)

Using the current month stats: there is a 8.04 month supply of SFD.

There was a very good end of July that I didn't really see coming. The numbers really blew past projections, if they are accurate. I don't have any reason to doubt them, other than we haven't seen 6,000 closings in a month in a while, and that we have a new stats system. Great to see month over month performance increases. I don't think August will top July however, but this is a very good month worth noting.

As you can see, the numbers show we are obviously in much better shape than we were last july, when we were simply getting battered by the credit crunch and the falling expectations of the market. The fact that we did better than June of 08 is what really impressed me.

What I also like is that such a large proportion of these sales are single family homes. As most of you agents who read this are concerned with that, that is a very good sign for you.

*I will express doubt in other statistics on here, and that is for active listings. I have a feeling that the number, compared to the system we used to use, might be lower, as the AWC statististics must be showing up in active somewhere. That would inflate the number of active listings, and they really should have fallen a lot more given our big week. If 10 day old+ contracts are not being broken out from active by agents because they can't, or because the system doesn't account for them, then this would explain why we didn't drop into the 51K listings this month. I am not sure of this, but it doesn't really seem possible that we sold as many homes as we did in the last week, and only dropped a few hundred homes from inventory. Other months in which this happened, with less closings, I might add, we dropped 1000+ listings. I can't point out directly where this discrepancy is, so we will have to watch.

Overall, a surprisingly good week, and a very positive start pointing to a recovery in our housing market. We have had four such months of improving numbers, and while I think this might be the best month we have this year, we can have some very real optimism that the market is a lot healthier in the latter half of 2008 than it was at the same time last year. I don't know how this will affect prices yet; economics would say prices may continue to fall, and I think that the price pressure is surely downward or sideways as opposed to upward, but I think that the rate of fall is slowing to a stop at the very least, as sales increase. There are still probably 10,000 too many listings on the market right now, and the foreclosure sales that don't show up here siphon off demand from investors, so we still have a ways to go to a equalized market. I am optimistic this week, however, that we are going in the right direction.