Weekly Scorecard 6-21-10
The same trends continue. It looks like the listed inventory has peaked and it is holding steady. Over the last couple of months listed inventory increased about 20% in all MLS areas but now looks to be leveling off. In addition the same descrepancy between the sold homes and pending sales is evident with sold homes out numbering the pending sales by approximately 2 to 1. The common wisdom is that this is due to the expiration of the first time home buyer tax credit but also I think some of this is seasonal as we have had our usual spring burst of sales and traditionally we see sales volumes go down in the summer. However at some point in time the pending sales and the sold homes need to come into sync. It is getting pretty late for these last burst of sales to come through from the tax credit incentives. Usually most sales close a maximum of 60 days and the last date to qualify for the tax credit was April 30th and the sale needed to be closed by June 30th so the July numbers should be a better indications of the underlying fundamentals of the market.
The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 6-21-10