Inventory Flat, AWC Stuffed with Short Sales
Weekly Sales Up, But September will Disappoint
Pendings Rising Close to June Levels; Big October Coming?
PENDING: 13,191 ( +269 from last week)
PENDING SF: 11,676 ( +209 from last week)
AWC: 6,537 ( +16 from last week)
AWC Single Fam: 5,774 ( +36 from last week)
Closed: 1,752 ( +454 from last week)
Closed SFam: 1,540 ( +393 from last week)
Active: 31,253 ( +27 from last week)
Active SFam: 24,010 ( -1 from last week)
CLOSED MTD: 4,192
Closed SFam: 3,678
September sales are likely to finish a little bit light, as the first two weeks closed was disappointing. This past week was better, and pending sales are pointing to what looks like a stronger October. September could finish exceptionally strong, but this week would have to be gangbusters, and the short week next week would have to follow suit. I am not anticipating 8000 sales this month, but we could be surprised. What's interesting is that pending sales are rising at a pretty good clip. In fact, they are practically at the same level as June, which preceded pretty good numbers for July. The end of May pending numbers were higher by a few hundred, so we are not likely to see June-type sales numbers, but this forecasts pretty strong sales. We will keep an eye on it, but the next few months may blunt the expected inventory rise that comes with 4th quarter reduction in sales.
September sales are not going to be great; the first two weeks started very poorly, and this past week was okay, but not strong enough to make up for the first few weeks. I don't expect that we will sell 2500 for each of the next few weeks, so I am expecting somewhere in the high 7000's for overall sales. A bit disappointing, but the recovery was going to go in fits and starts, and September looks like it will be one of those mileposts. October could be a much stronger month than expected, given pending sales, so September might just be a blip.
We are solidly in recovery, and I am seeing fairly widespread anecdotal evidence that the best priced housing product is disappearing at a pretty rapid clip. This doesn't mean that "market priced" homes are going quickly- buyers are still finding an abundance of lender owned properties at lower prices- but we are getting closer.
We continue to have low interest rates, making sales possible, and there is some talk about extending the $8000 tax credit, and possibly expanding it too all homebuyers, in order to stimulate the housing recovery. This is likely, given the "cash for clunkers" program's success. It is one of the few forms of the stimulus that actually puts money directly into the hands of consumer. We could see a pretty good uptick in sales were they to give the consumer a kick like that.
-chris
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