News

Prices are stable, sales are seasonally normal, the market is balanced…it’s barely newsworthy. The only thing to talk about is the high inventory and the craziness we saw in the past two years. So, I’ve done some extra charts this week for some added interest.

From this chart you can see inventory usually peaks somewhere between May and August, so here’s hoping we see the peak in May 2008. From the new listings I’m seeing this week though I think we’ve still got a ways to go before we hit the peak:

As you can see sales are at or near normal seasonal levels, after June we should start to see them tail off:

The ratio of sales to new listings is one of the statistics we use to determine if it is a buyer’s market, seller’s market or balanced market, and for the second month in a row we just squeaked into the balanced market category:   

The other stat we use to classify the market is the absorption rate, which is the number of months it will take to sell the existing inventory if sales remain stable. As you can see the absorption rate in 2007 was a wild ride, but this year it is hovering around the 6 month mark, which also indicates we are in a balanced market:

Last thing for today is the average days on market. Now, we don’t like to talk about this stat too much around here since it is unreliable. However, I had a look at the graph and noticed a definite annual trend that I thought was worth taking note of. As you can see the average number days on market tends to start out the year high, dip in the middle of the year and then increase again. So, forecasting out I think we will start to see homes taking longer to sell starting in June or July.

Enjoy!