Real Estate Information Archive

Going into the end of March heading for the home stretch of April with the tax credits i thought it might be interesting to look at the relative strength of the market comparing the last three years. the graph below shows the percentage of pending sales as compared to the total active inventory. if you look ta those two market indicators separately you can mis-read the relative strength or weakness of the market. yet when you look at them together you get a better picture of the strength or weakness of the market, as you can see below 2010 is between 2008 and 2009. the real test will come when the tax credits are no longer available after the April 30th deadline.

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Market update for Yellowstone County.  March 13^th 2010

I have put together a series of four graphs to try and discern the tea leafs at the bottom of the market performance cup.

The first graph shows the activity relationships to sort out how long the market will take to absorb the inventory that exists at this stage of the year, absorption time is always longer this time of year and this produced due to the slower winter sales and an increasing inventory so a little longer absorption does not mean that the sky is falling. Yet when we use the National Associations of Realtors definition of a buyers market of 180 days to absorb inventory Yellowstone County does exceed by just over 30 days sitting at absorption time of 212 days. I would note just like days on the market (presently 57 days) this number fluctuates though out the year so the trend either up, down or flat is just as important as the absorption time itself.

The second graph shows the pricing relation to the different inventory segments. My first comment would tend towards the closed sales in the average sales price you can see the effect of the first time buyer tax credit also in the off market price the slow demand shows in the average asking price of those properties that did not sell.

The third graph shows the relationship of the inventory trends the last three years what stands out is the rapid climb of 2008 as the United states economies bad news permeated the press and affected our market as people became concerned over what might happen here, the other stand out is 2010 and 2009 are essentially the same and inventory is staying flat neither increasing substantially or decreasing. This does indicate equilibrium within the market place of supply.

The fourth graph is one I personal watch closely to determine the strength of the market and that is the percentage of pendings to active properties. The reason this piece of information is important if both sales and inventory are moving in the sale direction the market shows balance which is a positive and if they are heading opposite directions you can see either strong price pressure or lack of demand much clearer than if looking at the each factor separately right now we are better than 2009 and lower than 2008. Yet the activity that will give the most definition will be when the tax credits end on April 30^th and where the trend lines are at the end of June. Those numbers will define the market for the rest of 2010. So right now it is off to the races until the tax credits expire.

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Thought it might be of interest to look at the market as see if we had left a “buyers” market behind. For definition of a buyers market I will use the National Association Realtors definition as to an inventory of homes that would take longer than 180 days for the market to absorb. Now one point I will acknowledge is that market absorption is always longer as we come out of winter and I think 89 continuous days of snow on the ground qualifies as winter.

I have generated two graphs to show the market and condition. First is the inventory graph as of this morning 3/8/2010 the first bar is inventory of single family homes, the positive the inventory is about 3% lower than last year at this time, the second bar, pending sales,  we have about 25% more pending sales than last year at this time, closed transaction using the same time frames for absorption 192 days back from today a year ago we have 9.1% fewer closed transactions. The fourth bar is the number of homes that went off market either expired or withdrawn in the absorption time of 192 days at 542 which is greater than existing inventory level is not a positive indicator. What this also indicates it will take a total of about 1023 homes to have been on the market to generate 486 sales or a sales rate of only 47.5% not a great number. The fifth bar is the length of time it will take to find 486 buyers that will actually close a transaction at 192 days that is over the  definition of a buyers market since it exceeds a 180 days. The fifth bar is the time it took to receive a contract on those that closed and it is only 50 days this tells us that if a home is priced properly it will sell and sell in a very reasonable time.

This second graph shows the price point corresponding to each of the above categories first is the most obvious that the higher you go into the market place the less likely it is a home is going to sell, (the off market) when you look at the both the pending and closed price points it jut confirms the information of the majority of higher priced inventory not selling. Looking at the active inventory price point also indicates that although the mix of inventory is trending towards lower price and there is most probably inventory that will not be selling.

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Here is housing number through February 28^th 2010 while there will be some additional closed transaction reported throughout the end of the week, not enough to radically change what follows below. You can see the impact to the tax credit and my belief is we are off to the races regarding the April 30^th 2010 expiration of the credits for purchase agreement to be in place, so for the next sixty day I would expect pending sales to pace last years increases after the tax credit was passed the first time. It will interesting see what happens after the credit expires , my belief is there will a substantial market pause before it reaches equilibrium, since a lot of purchasers will have been drawn into the market place earlier instead later in the year. I have also include below a graph show the percentage to pending to active to show the relative strength of the last three year. I am glad I live in Billings!!!

THIS CHART SHOWS FHA DEFAULTS AS A PERCENTAGE OF ORIGINATIONS IN YELLOWSTONE COUNTY COMPARED TO THE OTHER MAJOR AREAS OF THE STATE AND THE LAST COMPARISON IS THE STATE AS A WHOLE, UNITED STATES AS WHOLE AND LAS VEGAS. TO MAKE IT SIMPLE ALL THE BLUE WHICH IS THE FIRST COUNTY COLUM IS YELLOWSTONE COUNTY THE SECOND COUNTY COLUM IS THE DIFFERENT COUNTIES THROUGH OUT THE STATE

SO YOU MIGHT ASK HOW IS YELLOWSTONE FAIRING COMPARED TO THE REST OF THE STATE?

Default Choice - Percent of Originations Currently in Default

Performance Period - 01/31/2010
Loan Portfolio: Traditional FHA
Sorted by Compare Ratio

Data shown includes all insured single family loans with a beginning amortization
date between February 01, 2008 and January 31, 2010