August, Come She Must

There's an old rhyme meant to help us predict the hurricane season: "June, too soon; July, stand by; August, come she must..."

The big question going into the dog days of summer was: "Would August continue the momentum of the previous two months?"

The answer is a resounding "Yes".

Sales are up 2% from last month; and up 8% from this same month last year. This is the third month in a row for an increase over last year's same month. This three month trend reverses 35 months of year-over-year decreases. We are likely to look back at the Summer of '09 as the season of our comeback.

Pending sales also continue to climb. Last month there were 51% more Pendings than the same month last year - now there are 63% more pendings. Even New Construction Pendings are 23% above last year.

Short Sales and REO's are up slightly. Short sales were 15%. REO sales are were 20%.That makes 35% of the sales in August "distressed". Our high was 48% in Feb, 45% in March, & 44% in April.

There are some indications that more short sales are being closed.

Median home price continues to hover in the $170k to $175k range. In August the median was $171,000. This is down 2% from July and 17% from '08. There was a jump in new home median in August compared to July; up 7%. Looking back at July we observed a big drop in new home median. August seems to correct that.

Affordability is at its best ever!

Inventory is now back to 2006 levels. We now have 7.5 months of available inventory; 3289 resale and 755 new homes.

Lastly...home prices seem to be firming up. This discount between listing price and final sales price decreased to 2.9%