ARMLS STATS 1/12/18/09

PENDINGS UP SHARPLY AGAIN, INVENTORY FALLS SLIGHTLY
NEW CONTRACTS RISE OVER 8%*

PENDING SALES: 6633 ( +424 from last week)
PENDING SALES (Single Fam.) 6028 ( +366 from last week)

AWC: 1,074 ( +79 from last week)
(AWC Single Family) 982 ( +72 from last week)

ClOSED (thru 1/18/09) 1059 ( +220 from last week)
Closed Single Fam. 973 ( + 223 from last week)

Active Listings: 52,497 ( -12 from last week)
Single Family 42, 980 ( -119 from last week)

CLOSED MTD 1/18/09: 2,133 ( Closed thru 1/20/08: 1,503)
Single Family 1,914

This past week showed another spectacular improvement in demand factors for single family homes. Pending sales showed another sharp rise, and AWC contracts are showing a renewing supply of fresh contracts. This uptick is happening sooner in the year than it did in the past, which gives me a lot of hope that when we reach the seasonally better second quarter, real inventory reduction will manifest itself. We are likely to see something approaching 5000 sales this January, given our progess so far-a pace that would put us far past last January's total of 3,029.

More importantly than the January closing numbers is the forecasting numbers-pendings and AWC contracts. At this same point last January- or close to it on January 22nd-we had only 3,836 pending home sales, and 620 pending sales. When you look at the difference in these figures, you can see the definite improvement in the "demand" aspect. We still have far too much in the "supply" side, but I was encouraged that it fell a bit-I expected that we would continue to increase supply, but maybe enough demand is surfacing to keep up with the amount of listings that traditionally occur at this time. We are several thousand listings short of last year at this time-still insignificant statistically, but given the huge trove of foreclosures we have had to deal with, I again am encouraged that we are keeping pace, and yes, maybe even making some headway. If we can hold ground during January and February, we really have a chance to make some real dents in inventory starting in March.


I am also encouraged that I have started to receive sign calls on properties again-it has been a while, but people are maybe searching out places to put money they are shielding from the stock market.

If you are an investor-even a small investor- there are opportunities to buy land at some bargain prices now. You still have to hunt a little bit, but excellent bargains can be had.

This week is a key week setting up the end of the month sales-if we can have a very solid week, we can possibly foresee surpassing 5000 sales this month. I am again, cautiously optimistic that we are seeing demand recovery in the real estate market occurring. A key point of this is that January 0f 2004 (the first year of the boom) only showed 5,103 closings. Imagine that we might reach that this month? Even the crazy year of 2005, in the midst of the boom, there were only 6590 home sales in January. We still have tremendous inventory challenges, but if we have strong demand, we will make progress on that. I am optimistic that we are entering a period of market correction.