This past week our listings saw an average of 3.4 showings each. Traffic is starting to gear up as we near the spring selling season. This week is the first taste of spring we’ve had since the new year as the weather approaches 70 degrees. Lets hope the weather and the buyer activity is here to stay.
The very recent increase in activity hasn’t translated into to a significant sales increase quite yet. This week we’ll release our monthly E-Newsletter reporting the market stats for Mecklenburg County. Here’s a sneak peak when comparing last month to the month before, and again to the same month last year:
Home sales are down 30% from the prior month, but just about even with last year.
Average sales price is up 2% from the prior month, but down 10% from last year.
Median sales price is down 2% from the prior month and down about 5% from last year.
Average time on market is up 6% from the prior month and about even with last year.
Pending home sales are up 8% from the prior month, and down 9% from last year.
Supply is up 1% from the prior month, and down 9% from last year.
Interest rates are just slightly higher than the prior month, but still down from last year.
Typically, sales numbers for both prices and home sales bottom out in January or February of a seasonal cycle. The numbers above are for January and so it’s no surprise that the numbers are low. In comparison to the last two years, the numbers look pretty similar.
The biggest difference between this year and the past two Januarys is in the pending home sales numbers. Last year, pending home sales started increasing at a faster rate last year because of the urgency created by the first time buyer tax credit. This year, there is no such incentive so the pending home sales for January of this year are not quite as high as last year. However, they did make an 8% jump from the prior month and are about 15% higher than the pending sales in January 2009.
So, the numbers seem to indicate that we are back on the slow path toward recovery in the Charlotte real estate market. The lack of time sensitive incentives (like a tax credit) is likely to lead to a more consistent year for sales. This would be the opposite of what happened last year when the majority of the sales were crammed into the first half of the year. This could mean that although the first half of the year may not be as good as the same period last year, hopefully the second half will be much stronger than last year and yield a better year overall.