Inventory growth appears to have flattened.
Overall inventory peaked in October in both 2004 and 2005. Is this a temporary stall, or have we peaked early this year? It seems reasonable to guess that with all the unsold inventory, a lot of people are giving up early in anticipation of next year’s spring rally. Because that approach worked so well this year.
Rich, I saw the slowdown
Rich, I saw the slowdown with my tracking as well. What is interesting this year is right off 1/1 the inventory took off. But in 2005 inventory was flat until April then it took off. My thought on this was simply that folks saw the writing on the wall from the bad Q4 2005 and rushed out there with the listings 4 months early. therefore we are peaking earlier in August instead of Oct.
I did see it get as high as
I did see it get as high as 22,000, and even close to 23K during August. I think the listings will contine to grow, albeit more slowly. Perhaps the ones that were “testing the market” have finally dropped out, and now we’re left with more serious sellers?
Lindi, you might be on to
Lindi, you might be on to something. As the market declines, fewer people want to sell their house, esp. if they believe it will rebound in the spring. So anyone with a choice is not going to be on the MLS now.
Another consideration could be the quality of the listings: is anyone still on the MLS considered a motivated seller? So while we have fewer listings, their quality has improved.
These are just guesses.
Rich:
Could you possibly
Rich:
Could you possibly post the table that contains these data points or provide a link to it? I’d like to keep a running tally of these in my own spreadsheet.
End of summer, seller will
End of summer, seller will mostly relist their atms next spring. Expect to see a huge jump in inventory again. The way I see it, Q1 2007 is definitely the breaking point of SD housing bubble.