Wednesday, February 11 2009
Even though some real estate markets are still struggling to change and improve, some areas are seeing an improvement. Improvements can be measured in different ways. One way is by calculating the inventory of homes in the market and how long it would take to sell these homes. The article below mentions that inventories have declined in 29 markets. Even though Evansville is not included in the mentioned 29 markets, we can report that the inventory in Evansville has declined as well. As per the chart below you can see that at the beginning of January 2008 we had 12.60 months inventory and at the end of December 2008 we had 9.74 months inventory. This is a welcome reduction. We would like this figure to be closer to 6 months inventory.
Sales and Inventory History
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Category - Single Family
Housing Inventories Fall in 29 Major Markets
The inventory of existing homes for sale in 29 major markets covered by ZipRealty declined an average of 2.5 percent in January 2009, compared to December 2008 and down 13 percent compared to January 2008.
This is a good sign, especially when considering that typically inventories rise in January after the holidays. In the last 25 years, the average increase in inventory in January has been 8.7 percent, according to Ivy Zelman, CEO of research firm Zelman & Associates.
Housing-market analysis Altos Research reached similar conclusions, saying that the listings in its 10-city composite index declined 3.3 percent in January compared to December 2008.
This data doesn’t include New York City, where appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. reports that inventories were at the highest level in the last decade, up 6 percent from December and 36 percent from January 2008.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, James Hagerty (02/10/2009) Comments:
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