What has been the historical change in sales between March and April?
These are the MLS detached sales and average $/sf for NSDCC – La Jolla to Carlsbad:
Year | March | April |
2001 | 254/$280 | 260/$289 |
2002 | 385/$294 | 329/$290 |
2003 | 292/$334 | 323/$321 |
2004 | 282/$409 | 362/$417 |
2005 | 286/$457 | 282/$488 |
2006 | 244/$497 | 245/$486 |
2007 | 263/$441 | 273/$457 |
2008 | 147/$478 | 194/$454 |
2009 | 118/$390 | 172/$388 |
2010 | 216/$395 | 230/$375 |
2011 | 236/$372 | 178/$377 |
There are always late reporters, and the last couple of days of the month are the strongest – but it looks like this year we could break the recent trend of April having more sales than March.
Could be due to lack of inventory, OPTs, falling demand, and/or buyer disgust?
My take is that it isn’t the OPTs or the reduced inventory but rather the high “OPT:Inventory Ratio” coupled with a depleted, reduced buyer pool (buy a home and stay, vs buy/sell/buy/sell/buy…).
when everything you see are OPTs it gets old really fast.
clearfund,
I couldn’t agree with you more.
It is testimony to how precise the demand is. Buyers are well-educated on value.
Well said clearfund.
And all the bad news the media circulates helps to create a sense of uncertainty which hinders some buyers from making the jump. The fact that there seems to be no clear solution to the housing problem adds to that uncertainty. Home buyers are also investors; and investors loathe uncertainty.
The great debate.
http://econstories.tv/2011/04/28/fight-of-the-century-music-video/
Yep, depleted Buyer pool. It just doesn’t make sense to buy or sell right now.
Jim-
How do the Active/Pending Ratios look–It could be lack of supply (or at lest GOOD supply)!
Well at least more houses are selling now than 2009….
Actually I’m surprised the numbers are still this strong compared to the boom years. Looking at March, the last complete month of stats, the number of houses sold hasn’t really dropped that much since the frenzy years. That’s kind of surprising.
There is nothing on the horizon that will increase demand other than lower prices and this generally means significantly lower, unless the house is super prime location. It is just that simple.
If you happen to catch Bernarke’s “press conference” yesterday the look on his face tells you all you want to know about the future of the economy.
Wouldn’t the inventory be poor until the developers start making new homes?