How is this year going to wrap up?

Since springtime, the number of NSDCC detached-home sales have been stronger than the last couple of years, and the average cost-per-sf statistically has been range-bound, even though it feels like prices have been going up slightly. Here are the stats from the last two fourth quarters, for comparison:

4Q Sales # of Sales Avg. $/sf
4Q10
576
$382/sf
4Q11
582
$367/sf

Let’s take a guess at the number of 4Q12 sales:

There have already been 168 sales closed this month (at an average of $410/sf!).

There were 229 closings in 2011 that were marked pending between October 22nd and December 31st.  Sales this year have been generally better but the inventory is so low we might not has enough gas in the tank to match last year.  Let’s say 180 more will go pending after today, and close before year-end.

168 + 180 = 348

There are 147 listings marked contingent, and even if the banks rally for a year-end close-out, we can’t rely on those too heavily – bankers take their share of days off, and delaying additional losses to 2013 won’t be a bad idea for them.  Let’s say 50 more contingents close in 2012.

There are 422 listings marked pending, and of those, 292 went pending before October 5th, so their contingency period is complete. Let’s guess that 250 of those will close.  Of the 130 that are in their 17-day contingency period, only half, 65, end up closing, either with this buyer or a new one.

50 + 250 + 65 = 365   Grand total = 348 + 365 = 713

If we hit 713, it would be a 23% increase in sales over 4Q11.

This graph shows how this year’s monthly sales of detached-homes (in green) have fared:

Yet we may not see much change to the bouncing pattern we’ve had statistically for pricing.  With higher sales counts we can say that the general market conditions are improving, but pricing remains a very localized event:

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