Signs of home sales to come?
Here are two stats to cheer up would-be home sellers: Sixteen percent more properties were under contract last month in the Baltimore metro area than a year ago, and 10 percent fewer were on the market jostling for buyers' attention.
The biggest increase in pending deals came in Howard and Carroll counties (both up 26 percent), followed by Anne Arundel County (up 23 percent), Baltimore City (up 13 percent), Baltimore County (up 12 percent) and Harford County (up 1 percent). The raw numbers come from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems via the Maryland Association of Realtors.
Howard's inventory of homes for sale dropped 17 percent from a year ago. The decrease ranged from 8 percent to 10 percent in the rest of the metro area.
Many pending deals come with contingencies, so they won't necessarily get to settlement. But the figure is a useful bellwether. The increase in home sales last month was preceded by an increase in pendings.
If this is a sign of the long-awaited "bottom" in home sales, the Maryland side of the Washington metro area is farther along than we are: Add up Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's counties, and pending deals were up 63 percent last month.
Together, those three counties had fewer pending deals a year ago than the Baltimore metro area. Now they have more -- 2,759 to our 2,723.
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Comments
Bottom of crash? Dead cat bounce? Who knows - but there is certainly one sign that would get things going: pre-bubble prices.
Posted by: Darwin Rules | July 22, 2009 1:40 PM
I have to admit, I saw more homes sell in my area (Howard County) than I orginally thought would. For single family homes the sweet spot seemed to be in the $350k-$400k range. Stuff over $400k is still sitting there, and some of it has been sitting for a long time.
By the way, when they talk about the inventory of homes for sale, do they have any way to account for homes that did not sell but were pulled off the market? I see that with a few homes in my neighborhood. The for sale signs were up last year and eventually came down, but the same people still live there. I can't tell if they decided not to move or they're waiting the market out.
Posted by: jfg | July 22, 2009 3:55 PM
Hi, jfg -- I believe MRIS does track the number of homes pulled off the market, but that's not included in the publicly available information on its site.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | July 22, 2009 4:22 PM
I have a feeling a lot of those pending sales are stuck in the short sale circus like I am. I'm getting ready to bail because it's just getting ridiculous.
Posted by: BigDragon | July 22, 2009 4:45 PM
The NAR can skew the numbers any way they want to!!!! The lenders are in charge here by taking foreclosures, short sales, and REO's off the market. They are holding on to these properties and letting the homeowner live in there longer so less homes are on the market. By creating less supply, home sales will increase. It's simple economics!!!! Wait until after the summer when school starts. You will see home sales continue to decline. Remember, the spring through summer is the peak season. Sales should be up!!!! Big deal if prices drop 15% instead of 20%. If that means we hit bottom, then I guess we did. Just because the rate of decline has slowed, does not mean we are out of the woods yet. There will still be plenty of foreclosures to go around when unemployment continues to go up. Oh, and by the way, if the proposed legislation passes that prohibits mortgage brokers to receive yield spread premium, but allows the bank to make service release premium, you will see how much harder it will be to get a loan closed when thousands of people get out of the business. And also, starting next Friday, every potential borrower will have their closing prolonged and extended an additional 2 weeks since they will have to re-disclose the TIL. As if the HVCC was not enough, not this. Good luck getting a loan after July. It will be a complete NIGHTMARE!!!!!
Posted by: Frank Rizzo | July 24, 2009 11:09 PM