January market report in…its going to be a good year.

Here is my Valentine present for you. (and Me!)

2012 January sales were 384 in Ada County, a decrease of 10.4% over January 2011. This is the strongest January sales we’ve had since 2007. Historically, January sales are the lowest of the year. January sales decreased by 100 units from December; down 20%. In the previous two years the drop off in sales from December to January was more than 200 units…this suggests a stronger than normal fist month of the year. Of our total sales in January… 53% were distressed….up 6% from December 2011, but down from the two previous years. In January 2011, 57% of our sales were distressed. We have seen a mild overall increase in the percentage of sales in distress. In July we were down to 42% overall and have seen the amount increase one to two points each month. Few days from last month. Down from 94 days last year. Pending sales at the end of January were 856; an increase of 25% from the end of December. In general pending sales increase in January compared to December. The percentage of pending sales in distress decreased 2% from December, totaling 47% overall. We are now at nine consecutive months below 50%. At the end of January, we had 18% more sales pending than at the end of January 2011. January median home price was 139,000; up 2.6% from January 2011. New Homes median price for January was $209,000; a decrease of 1% from January 2011. The number of houses available continues to decrease. At the end of January our total active inventory was 1,947 homes. This is down 3% from December and 29% less than last year at this time. At the same time, the percentage of distressed active inventory dipped 1% to 35%. We have been hovering between 33% and 36% since May. We remain well below the 40% levels set last spring….when we were on the increase. In Ada County we have 4.5 months of inventory on hand…historically this number defines a strong “seller’s market”. The price category in shortest supply is <$119,000 with 2.5 months. In the range of $120,000 to $159,999 we have 4.2 months. All price points up to $200,000 have less than 5 months supply. We have benefited all year from inventory levels much lower than national average. Now, however, we are starting to see some slowdown in sales as the inventory continues to fall. Based on January sold data, our most desirable price point is $120,000 to $160,000 which made up more than 20% of total sales. There is no longer any doubt that, in Ada County, we have passed our “low water” point. The challenge to our continued recovery is available product. At Mike Turner’s Real Estate Summit last week, Mike had some compelling data showing how 2012 is going to be a strong year for real estate in Ada County. We also have several new developments regarding Federal policies addressing home ownership (HAPR 2 and HARP 3) and a big announcement about a settlement between banks and States Attorneys General over their foreclosure practices. So now what…?  Will loads of new foreclosures flood our inventory… doubtful.  There will be an increase, but we need all of the inventory we can get.

Courtesy of Marc Lebowitz, Ada County Association of Realtors.