These are the statistics for the week of Jan 26-Feb 2, 2009. These stats are for all the single family residential listings in the Mat-Su borough.
This week there were 26 pendings and 22 closings. This indicates a reasonably strong market. In fact there were more pendings and as many closings as there were new listings. That is surprising for this time of year. The total inventory actually dropped this week. This is the time of year when inventory generally rises steadily until summer.
Two of the twenty two new listings and only one of the twenty two closings were foreclosures. While the foreclosure market is pretty much the only market in many parts of the country, it is still not driving the market here. If it were to increase from 10% to become 25%-30% of the total market then we would see a significant impact.
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Average Price | Median Price | DOM | |
| New | 22 | $247,734 | $242,800 | . |
| Total Active | 645 | $283,555 | $230,900 | 165 |
| Pending | 26 | $233,777 | $232,000 | 118 |
| Closed | 22 | $188,893 | $183,500 | 91 |
Six of the closed listings were new construction. That is especially high for this time of year. This is an additional indicator of the health of the current market. Buyers generally review everything on the market before deciding to build. The fact that builders can continue to compete with the existing inventory shows although prices are soft, they are still high enough that building a new house is a viable alternative.
Two anecdotal pieces of news this week. I talked to a manager of a building supply store that believes construction will pick up in the spring. He has done several recent bids for large projects in the south central area. That’s the good news. Then I recieved second hand info from someone who is in the know about oil company plans. He thinks that oil companies will begin to lay off some long time workers this spring. That would send a negative ripple across the market.
So choose your news and act accordingly. 🙂
