Weekly Scorecard 8-3-09

By George Thurtle

Well things seem to keep marching onto to the same tune. The lsitings for this week continue their gradual decline with 272 listings compard to 279 last week. This is the first meaningful drop under the 280 number thast the listing inventoryit seemed to be hovering at for the last couple of months.

Now here is the real story there was a whopping 21 homes which showed as sold and in that group there was no listed bank owned homes or short sales. I checked this number a couple of times to make sure I had not accidentally entered the wrong dates or double counted. The price per sq. ft. sales price was $228 a decline from last weeks $240 dollar plus number but given the volume a really respectable number. The average sales price was $528,607. Again this average is solidly above $500,000 indicating some of the more expensive homes are selling and closing.

Six homes went pending this week at a per sq. ft. price of $232 again a little less than last week but well above the $220 where it had been stuck at. The average listing price for a sold home was the highest yet at $615,567. Also it appears that the new construction inventory is starting to get depleted with two of the pending home sales being presales on unfinished homes. As we discussed earlier the builders cannot get credit to build and many of the new homes under $1,000,000 have sold in the last couple of months.

The big question is if demand stays the same how much new inventory will come on? If not a lot of new inventory comes on, particularly bank inventory, there will be continued upwqrd pressure on prcing if the present demand remains constant but that is the question is if the buyer will stay in the game as prices move up.

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