Ride the Market - The Real Estate Roller Coaster
04/25/07 06:47
I saw this originally on speculativebubble.com, and thought it was worth posting. Basically, this is a roller coaster that is riding the actual market history from 1890. You'll notice the year in the bottom right corner of the video. Very interesting. These are the national figures, but the Orlando real estate market is too far off the track (pun intended).
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Market Pulse - Market Conditions for February
03/10/07 17:15
We've been including the market
conditions in our site for awhile now, but I
want to give you a breakdown, and explain some
of these numbers. First thing to note - the
figures are for the previous month. We usually
get the data on the 8th of the month, which
gives the stat people time to gather the info.
The following figures and information is for
Orange and Seminole counties (FL) combined.
The first chart we'll analyze is Average Monthly Mortgage Rate:
You'll notice we are only slightly up from January, but down from February of last year. The overall trend seems to be that rates are low, but might start creeping up into Summer. We'll keep a close on on it through Spring.
Our next table shows Inventory:
I'm not happy with where we're going on this chart. We're up slightly from January, but almost double what we were last year. Inventory is the number of homes on the market. I'll explain the effect of this later in this post. We have all been watching this, and I'm a little surprised we weren't down this month. I thought the market was starting to swing, and the inventory was being bought up. Maybe March will reflect this. This is a good indication that it's still a great buyer's market - let's go buy a house...there are plenty to choose from!
Now we'll look at New Listings in the area:
This chart goes hand-in-hand with inventory. There was a HUGE spike in listings between Dec '06 and Jan '07 which is normal. The added listings boosted the inventory. We're almost dead even with last year, which gives a glimmer of hope that our market has corrected itself and is starting to balance out. The roller-coaster is back in the station. We dropped over a thousand new listings between January and February, so if this trend continues, we'll lower the inventory. Note to buyers - the lower the inventory, the more likely we're heading to another seller's market.
Now for New Contracts:
Let's talk about inventory again. If you take the number of homes on the market and divide it by the number of homes under contract, you'll have an estimate of the amount of inventory we have - in months. For February, we have 22,055 inventory divided by 2,387 new contracts = 9.24 months of inventory left. In other words. if we took NO new listings this year, it would take 9.24 months to sell everything we have in inventory. This is NOT a great number if you're currently trying to sell your home. I predict this number will dramatically reduce as we enter Summer. Even though it appears we're still in a decline with new contracts, the graph as a whole shows the trend for an increase.
Days on Market:
For February '07, the average days a listed house stayed on the market was 92. Ouch! If you are trying to sell your home - be patient. Last year, the average days on market was 48, and this number has grown EVERY month. There has not been a decline in the number of days on the market, and a lot of this has to do with the amount of inventory we have. With so much inventory, buyers can be very selective. Sellers are having to be creative with incentives, and financing options. Like I said before...I think this will all level out very soon. I'll do this report each month, so stay tuned.
Unemployment Rate:
Our unemployment rate has remained fairly steady this year. Last February our unemployment rate was 3.2%, and is now 3.3%. This really hasn't played a major factor in our local market, but could if it changes drastically.
If you still have questions about any of these numbers, feel free to call me. You can reach our team toll free at (888) 55-EKDAY, or locally at 407-729-9695. If you're an expert in this, and feel I have misinterpreted any of these facts, let me know in the comments.
The first chart we'll analyze is Average Monthly Mortgage Rate:
You'll notice we are only slightly up from January, but down from February of last year. The overall trend seems to be that rates are low, but might start creeping up into Summer. We'll keep a close on on it through Spring.
Our next table shows Inventory:
I'm not happy with where we're going on this chart. We're up slightly from January, but almost double what we were last year. Inventory is the number of homes on the market. I'll explain the effect of this later in this post. We have all been watching this, and I'm a little surprised we weren't down this month. I thought the market was starting to swing, and the inventory was being bought up. Maybe March will reflect this. This is a good indication that it's still a great buyer's market - let's go buy a house...there are plenty to choose from!
Now we'll look at New Listings in the area:
This chart goes hand-in-hand with inventory. There was a HUGE spike in listings between Dec '06 and Jan '07 which is normal. The added listings boosted the inventory. We're almost dead even with last year, which gives a glimmer of hope that our market has corrected itself and is starting to balance out. The roller-coaster is back in the station. We dropped over a thousand new listings between January and February, so if this trend continues, we'll lower the inventory. Note to buyers - the lower the inventory, the more likely we're heading to another seller's market.
Now for New Contracts:
Let's talk about inventory again. If you take the number of homes on the market and divide it by the number of homes under contract, you'll have an estimate of the amount of inventory we have - in months. For February, we have 22,055 inventory divided by 2,387 new contracts = 9.24 months of inventory left. In other words. if we took NO new listings this year, it would take 9.24 months to sell everything we have in inventory. This is NOT a great number if you're currently trying to sell your home. I predict this number will dramatically reduce as we enter Summer. Even though it appears we're still in a decline with new contracts, the graph as a whole shows the trend for an increase.
Days on Market:
For February '07, the average days a listed house stayed on the market was 92. Ouch! If you are trying to sell your home - be patient. Last year, the average days on market was 48, and this number has grown EVERY month. There has not been a decline in the number of days on the market, and a lot of this has to do with the amount of inventory we have. With so much inventory, buyers can be very selective. Sellers are having to be creative with incentives, and financing options. Like I said before...I think this will all level out very soon. I'll do this report each month, so stay tuned.
Unemployment Rate:
Our unemployment rate has remained fairly steady this year. Last February our unemployment rate was 3.2%, and is now 3.3%. This really hasn't played a major factor in our local market, but could if it changes drastically.
If you still have questions about any of these numbers, feel free to call me. You can reach our team toll free at (888) 55-EKDAY, or locally at 407-729-9695. If you're an expert in this, and feel I have misinterpreted any of these facts, let me know in the comments.
Source: Orlando Regional
Realtor Association