There have been press releases this week about December sales being down, and our cheerleader was happy to blame the higher rates and low inventory:

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the housing market’s best year since the Great Recession ended on a healthy but somewhat softer note. “Solid job creation throughout 2016 and exceptionally low mortgage rates translated into a good year for the housing market,” he said. “However, higher mortgage rates and home prices combined with record low inventory levels stunted sales in much of the country in December.”

Added Yun, “While a lack of listings and fast rising home prices was a headwind all year, the surge in rates since early November ultimately caught some prospective buyers off guard and dimmed their appetite or ability to buy a home as 2016 came to an end.”

He forgot about the TRID hangover from November, 2016 that pushed additional sales into December.  Our sales count last month was 235, which was just under the 253 sales in December, 2015.  I’ll take it!

But the quarterly totals would be a better gauge – these were my guesses from July, 2016 for the second half of the year:

NSDCC Quarterly sales numbers (with estimates):

Quarter
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
1Q
577
672
581
629
556
2Q
900
998
849
901
909
3Q
845
884
753
832
850?
4Q
832
664
666
662
660?
Total
3,154
3,218
2,849
3,024
2,975?

Here’s how it turned out:

NSDCC Quarterly sales numbers:

Quarter
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
1Q
577
672
581
629
556
2Q
900
998
849
901
909
3Q
845
884
753
832
795
4Q
832
664
666
662
739
Total
3,154
3,218
2,849
3,024
3,019

The 739 sales in 4Q16 exceeded my guess by 12%, and the momentum from 2016 should continue to drive sales in 2017.  We’ve already had 112 NSDCC closed sales this month, and have a week of closings left to catch last January’s 168 sales.  Full steam ahead!

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