Weekly Scorecard 1-17-11
The inventory is staying flat and falling while the sales are remaining at a fair volume. Usually this time of year you start seeing inventories rise and then sale begin to rise any where from two weeks to a month later. This year the inventory does nopt seem to be coming on. My guess is that two factors have occurred that are influencing each other. The first is that the last two years has wrung a lot of distressed inventory out of the system. There is still more to come but it appears we are getting on the backside of it. The second issue is that prices have not moved up yet and as a result the “discretionary” sellers, those who sell based on opportunity and a forced distressed sale, do not see enough opportunity to participate in the market. The lack of new distressed inventory and low overall pricing appears discouraging “discretionary” sellers appears to be keeping a lid on inventory for now.
The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 1-17-11