After a brief flirtation with black ink, we returned to year-over-year declines in buyer activity in the 13-county Twin Cities metro area. There were 522 Pending Sales for the week ending December 11. That's a 3.7 percent dip from year-ago levels – a minuscule change when placed in the context of recent history.
Sellers introduced more homes to the marketplace than they did last year at this time, placing 1,053 new homes on the market for a 2.4 percent increase over 2009 levels.
This recipe has enabled year-over-year inventory growth even as that metric shrinks from month-to-month. The 23,349 active listings for sale presented 11.3 percent more options for buyers than last year, but the rate of growth has decelerated.
As we tally the returns from this historically snowy run toward 2011, don't expect a colossal shift in buyer or seller activity for the closing weeks of December.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, new listings are consistently not matching last year's marks — a welcome sign in this era of high supply. The 1,081 new listings for the most recent week is a decline of 13.8 percent from last year's pace and marks the 11th week of the last 13 to post a year-over-year decline.
Well, I'm not buying..
Posted by: Price check... please! | December 22, 2010 at 09:09 PM