DWCAP,
The thing that kills me is I used to track actives and pending every week by ZIP in my market measuring them at the same time each week. When they changed the MLS platform it became a pain to do and I kinda lost interst in doing it. If I had kept it up I could answer definitively so I’ll have to go based upon what I have seen over the years.
The inventory issue is a pretty normal thing. Generally speaking inventory is lowest in December/early January for a few reasons. First relatively few properties are listed in November and December while there are always buyers looking to close escrow by the end of the year for tax purposes. Another big factor is discretionary sellers typically take their homes off the market for the holidays and come back in late January/Early February.
In the same vein, sellers in this market want to move over the summer so we see lots of properties getting listed on the market in May and June. This is also a very predicatble secular cycle.
The last factor that I am seeing is a segment of sellers (not big but defintely noticeable to me) who were borderline underwater last year. Now that prices have come back up they see a chance to get out without being short or being short enough that they will come out of pocket.
Inventory alone is a pretty flawed measure of market health because it’s supply which has to be balanced against demand. Thats why I looked at the relationship between the two by default. Its the best way to guage the markets health and from all outward appearances things look stable around here.
