September Numbers Are In - And They're Good!

It is clear that buyers are getting the message.

I attended a “Finally Home” first time buyer seminar for 3 evenings last week. Gary Archer, the instructor, said: “There will never be a time in your life when real estate is a better buy.”

By the way, do your buyer clients the best favor you can. Get them in the Finally Home program. I Tweeted from class: “We think they know so much more than they really do”. I’m standing by that.

Sales in September were up 4% over August ‘09 and up 8% over September ’08.

So far in ’09 month over month sales have been up 8 months out of 9. Total monthly volume for September is nearly 2 ½ times what it was last January.

Median price in September slipped to $165,000 from Augusts’ $171,872. Most of this is from the number of short sales that closed.

Inventory fell to its lowest number since June ’06. Our highest inventory number was 5198 in July ’07. We are nearly one-third less than that record amount. Compared to September ’08 we are 15% less. Translating that into months of inventory on hand; we are at less than 7 months. (combined new and resale). This is 50% reduction from January ’09.

We have traditionally defined “market equilibrium” as 6 months of available inventory.
Measuring the impact of the first time home buyer tax credit; NAR recently reported that this category of buyer typically accounted for 45-48% of total sales. Nationally, the number is now over 50% of all sales.

In Ada County, sales of homes under $160,000 account for 32% of all inventory. This is up 20% from January ’09.

In September 45% of all sales were houses under $160,000.

In this price category, inventory is even scarcer. Inventory of new homes under $160,000 is at 4.35 months. Inventory of existing homes under $160,000 is at 4.6 months.

Short sales in September were 15% of all sales. REO sales in September accounted for just over 18% of total sales. This is down slightly from August and down 14% from our high in March.
Pending sales continue to forecast a solid future. At the end of September there were 975 pending sales.

Now, if we can just get Congress to do the right thing and extend the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, we're going to continue this recovery.