Buyer activity on the Upswing As Pendings Up Sharply
Listing Activity down from January 2011
Median Price?
Inventory falls slightly, insufficient for March Demand.
Pending Sfam: 8,994 ( +315 from last week)
AWC: 7,001 (+160 from last week)
AWC Sfam: 6,063 ( +122 from last week)
Active: 18,456 ( -65 from last week)
Active Sfam: 14,438 ( -75 from last week)
Closed 1/9/12-1/15/12: 1,348 ( +477 from last week)
Closed Sfam: 1,110 ( +373 from last week)
New inventory Jan'12: 4,987
Median Price so far this month: $120,000. Up $10K from January 2011
Up $3K from December 2011
Buyer activity looks to be recovering after the holiday hangover, as for the second straight week, we've had a substantial rise in pending sales. Inventory slipped just slightly, which is fine. I would have predicted inventory to rise as January is typically a heavy listing month. We are on a pace for less than 10,000 listings this month, which is substantially higher than December, but that is completely normal. If we are around 10,000 listings for January, that will be a significant decrease from January 2011, which saw over 12,500 listings come on the market.
I don't like to talk about Median price so early in the month, but it is also trending higher. It might not finish that high, but right now its cresting at $120,000 which is substantially higher than a year ago, and a good monthly jump from December and November. Three months is a trend, and we will have to see where it finishes. I don't expect January normally to be a time when prices are pressured upward, but the momentum is likely there, and there is simply a lot less of the lower priced inventory available.
January is typically the calm before the storm, but we are half way through now, and we can activity picking up; I don't think we will have the raw numbers we saw in 2011, because we simply don't have the inventory to accommodate sales, but we will see higher pricing for the sale we do have. We might see substantially higher sales prices due to so few homes being available. I am calling for substantially higher prices by the end of the year, and I expect that conservatively speaking we will see median pricing in the $130's by June. The cheaper inventory is just not there like it was. We are seeing excellent activity, however, and I do expect us to have some very positive news by April.
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