It looks like things are holding their own right now with a slight improvement over last month's report.
Detached:
8,334 homes are now on the market for sale vs. 8,495 last month. The same number of new escrows, 1,521, opened in October as in September. With these numbers we have a 5.48 month inventory of homes. When we add in the number of "Contingents" (short sales that went under new contracts) in October we find that another 2,016 homes came off the market. The total of new escrows plus contingents was 3,537 and those numbers tell us that we have a 2.4 month inventory overall. In normal markets we would see prices rising but we are in more of a neutral range due to the economic conditions. A number of those contingents will never close escrow with the current buyer due to the time needed to process short sales. Sellers should price their homes as aggressively as possible to compete with the best and most comparable direct competitor on the market if they hope to receive serious activity.
Attached:
4,040 condos and town homes are now on the market county wide vs. 4,086 last month. 783 new escrows were opened in October vs. 775 in September, so the inventory went down a little and the number going into escrow increased slightly. This gives us 5.22 months of inventory based on only the "pending" numbers. When we add back in the number of new "contingents" another 1,512 units brings the number of pendings plus contingents to 2,295, down slightly from last month but still giving us 1.78 months of inventory. Again, as with the detached units, there is not much upward pressure on prices even though several media outlets have reported increases to the median price levels.
R. Ungar, Associate Broker – Keller Williams Realty
