September 2010 Resale Data Rodeo

Now that I have a version of Excel that allows a greatly expanded
color selection, I took the opportunity to update the graphs to match
the site’s muted theme.  (I’m using a loose definition of
“now”… I figure there is wiggle room to the effect of a year or so…
but let’s not quibble about the details).

What’s that you say?  You’re interested in the actual data, and
don’t want to read a discussion about color schemes?

Well.  It takes all kinds, I guess.

Price-wise, the data didn’t have anything too exciting to offer:

The median price per square foot was down a hefty 5.2% for condos,
which are always volatile.  It was up by 1.3% for detached homes,
however. 

Because of the larger sample size and lower volatility, I consider
detached homes the better bellweather.  But even here, prices were
lower than they were two months prior, and for that matter lower than
they were for the entirety of the stimulus-goosed spring/summer rally
earlier this year.  So while this price measure was up for a
single month it could still potentially be trending down from frenetic
springtime levels.

Here’s the vanilla median:

The 3-month smoothing in the Case-Shiller proxy also implies a price
downtrend:

Closed sales were down for the month, having gone down in a pretty
straight line since June:

And pendings, have blipped up last month, dropped again to get back in
line with the post-June trend:

Inventory was up again — that has been straight up all year, though
the rate of growth has tapered off lately.  We are nearly back at
late-2008 levels at this point:

The drop in pendings and the rise in inventory bumped the
months-of-inventory figure above the storied 6-month level.  This
is the highest that months-of-inventory has gotten since 2008:

Readers may recall that six months of inventory is the level that has
had a historical tendency to mark
the line between upward and downward price pressure.  The
somewhat unfavorable level of supply in comparison to demand, along
with the weak price charts above, imply further price stagnation if not
an outright decline in the months ahead.