ARMLS STATS 11/17-11/23/08

LISTINGS CONTINUE SHARP INCREASE
PENDINGS STABLE, NOV. SALES LIKELY TO FALL SHORT OF 5,000


PENDING SALES: 6368 ( +4 from last week)

AWC: 1009 ( -14 from last week)

CLOSED ESCROWS: 1096 ( +64 from last week)

ACTIVE LISTINGS: 55,256 ( +304 from last week)

Closed MTD: (through 11/23/08) 3021


Single Family Stats

PENDING SALES: 5,779 ( +15 from last week)

AWC: 915 ( -22 from last week)

CLOSED ESCROWS: 996 ( +63 from last week)

ACTIVE LISTINGS: 45,418 ( +185 from last week)

MTD CLOSINGS: 2,771

We have settled into the 4th quarter slowdown of activity, without a doubt. November 2008 is tough as we had 10 weekend days and 2 holidays out of 30, so closings will suffer in such a month. We are not going to get to 5000 sales this month by anything that I can see. We have only punched over 2000 sales in the last week once or maybe a few times this year, and I don't see why it would happen in November, where there are relatively fewer pending sales.

I don't think there is any doubt we are seeing a large number of foreclosure listings coming on the market now, as inventory continues to grow at a brisk pace. There was some expectation not too many months ago that we could fall under 50000 listings by the end of the year, but that notion has been turned on its head, despite fairly solid sales figures since then. There is just a lot of inventory to feed into the market, and we are heading into the teeth of the slowest part of the year, so I expect that inventory will not start shrinking until March. New listings tend to slow down in December, but as so many of these listings are not homeowners but lender owned, I think we may not see the traditional drop. We'll see.

On a positive note, we are likely to see sales exceed last November, and there seems to be continuing stability in the number of pendings, even though we are in a slower quarter. The drop off was not precipitous, and if we can stay around that 5000 sales per month through the end of the year and into january, we might be looking at a much brighter spring sales period.