ARMLS STATS 12/29/09

***Closed Escrows Reach 90K+ for '09***

Active listings up slightly over the last several weeks.

Pending: 10,453 Previous Week (*NA)
Pending Sfam: 9,116 Previous Week (*NA)

AWC: 6,038 (Not Available)

AWC SFAM: 5,248 N/A)

Closed 12/21-12/27/09: 1,208 (Last Week: 1,815)

Closed Single Fam: 1,043 (Last Week: 1,519)

Active Listings: 34,174

Active Sfam: 26,593

Closed thru 12/27: 5,646

Closed Sfam: 4,880

I apologize for not posting the last few weeks, as I have been extremely busy, and with December being a relatively nondescript month in home sales, there was not much interesting going to happen anyway. Here is what we have. As expected, pendings tend to slide a bit during the holidays, and this year is no different. We won't see that activity pick up again until February, most likely. We will see inventory picking up until that time as well, as many people put their homes on the market after the first of the year. Sales for December are going to be less than previous months, but this is expected for December. It is still not a bad month, with sales likely topping 7000, although the last week is hard to predict here. We are at over 6000 including yesterday, so we might see a little flourish that puts us over 7000. Last December sales totaled 5451 for the whole month, and was about 4300 through the 27th, so we can expect another 1000-1200 sales from our current position, I think. We have reached 90,000 sales, which is a pretty good year for sales. Inventory is still too high, but we might see that being reduced substantially by May once the spring buying season heats up. It is not likely to be as dramatic as last year, but it still looks likely. Prices are likely to flatten a little bit locally, as buying pressure decreases in the winter, but will pick up again in March and April.

Pricing will be a key issue this upcoming year. I do think we will be flat if not down over the next few months. When we start seeing a push in buyer activity beginning in late February, we will see upward price pressure again.

This chart is courtesy of MLS, and it shows some of the trends for the past year. We have improved our situation pretty dramatically since January of last year. Prices have stabilized, and while they may bump along for a few months, we still will see an increase by this time next year- probably a fairly substantial one.

I wish you all a very happy new year, and hope that we will have a lot of good things to discuss about our industry going forward!

chris