July ARMLS statistics August 3, 2010
Pending: 9,859
Pending Sfam: 8,481
AWC: 6,602
AWC SFAM: 5,640
Closed July: 7,100
Closed Sfam: 6,012
Active: 36,037
Active Sfam: 28,941
July numbers, as expected, were down considerably from June's peak. June's numbers pulled many sales forward, stripping them from July sales. Many sales of properties that were in line to receive the home buyer tax credit, especially short sales, had to be done in June, and as such there was great pressure to get them done by then. The hangover effect of this is pretty apparent in July's numbers. It is not unexpected, but I think that it appears that July was still weaker than expected. We will have to wait and see if this is a trend, but these are not numbers that I am happy with. We will want to see a rebound in Sales in August, but I would expect that we will not see over 8000 sales per month for the rest of the year, other than September.
New home sales might be a culprit in this as well. Builders have become very aggressive, and are able to compete on price pretty well. As people start comparing the available used to new inventory, new inventory starts to look decent, and builders success in selling has a negative effect on the prices of pre-existing inventory and the inventory itself. That being said I don't think that new home sales were so great that they affected existing sales this much. It was a bit of a slow month, I think, no way around that. We will want to see some pick up in August.
