Single Family Inventory Falls below 32000!
Pending Sales Still Rising; AWC too.
Closed escrows well ahead of March 09's pace.
Less than 6 mo. supply of overall and single fam. homes now.
PENDING SALES: 14,077 ( +373 from last week)
Pending Single Fam: 12,671 ( +297 from last week)
Active W/Contingency: 3,436 ( +338 from last week)
AWC Single Fam: 3,122 ( +315 from last week)
CLOSED: 1,843 ( +17 from last week)
Closed Single Fam: 1,644 ( + 8 from last week)
Active Listings: 40,765 ( -1366 from last week)
Active Single Family: 31,957 (-1233 from last week)
Closed MTD 4/26/09: 6,066 (April 26, 2008: 3,592)
Closed MTD Single Fam: 5,447 (April 26, 2008: 3,057)
Sales Comparison March '09:
Overall Closed thru Same date 3/26/09: 5,758
Overal Closed Single Fam. 3/26/09: 5,181
There are enough weeks of positive news that definitely tell us we are moving forward in the housing market. We may still have price issues, as most of the inventory on the market is in fact bank-owned properties. These sell for considerably less money than "normal" market pricing, and therefore, bank-owned sales are going to be a drag on the average prices for a while.
We are seeing massive inventory reductions happening right now that can't be explained by sales and the foreclosures alone. There is simply not a lot of inventory coming on the market from your average homeowner, and I think that this can be attributed to many people deciding that they are just going to have to stay put for a while. Likely reasons are that they know they can't get new financing, or do not wish to try, or they are just not in an economic position to do so because of job fears, or lack of qualifying funds. These people are benefitting the market in that they are no longer contributing to inventory due to "panic listing" that we were seeing previously. We are now reaching very acceptable levels of inventory, during prolonged periods of higher sales. As inventory dwindles down, especially the lower priced bank-owned properties, I think we are likely to see some slowdown in the number of sales for a period of time, as buyers adjust to the idea that a home is not available at the bargain prices it once was. However, we still have many first time buyers, and new residents like retiring baby boomers who will still be buying homes at what are still very acceptable prices; maybe not the sub-$100K that we are seeing from banks right now, but most people still find a mortgage of 450-$750 very acceptable, and more importantly, sustainable.
I am not going to do a lot of commentary today, as thankfully my own business is starting to pick up and I have less time this morning for this, but next week's post follows the end of the month, and I may go into some more detail at that time. There are a lot of interesting trends that will be worth talking about if we finish april strong.
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