Excerpts from an 8/11/09 email… (printed with permission)
Attached are the statistics comparing January through July for 2008 versus 2009. As you can see, we have made an incredible recovery over just the last 2 months. Two months ago we were off 35% in the number of transactions; now we are only off 25%. Two months ago, price was down 15%; now we are only off 11%.
Activity remains very high. The number of contingents on the hot sheet each week is easily beating numbers from last year. By the end of 2009, we feel very sure in predicting that there will be more contingents in 2009 than in 2008. If we keep up at this pace, closed sales may not be down that much from 2008. The large gap between contingents and closed sales is due to “fall throughs” from unsuccessful short sale attempts and appraisals. Contract fall outs in some areas are pushing 30% where historically fall outs were 18%. 21% of current contingents are either short sales or lender owned. Appraisals are also causing “fall throughs.”
Note that the attached stats now refer to median price rather than average price. Median price is a better representation of the market than average price.
Best Regards, Bose Blakeney (www.duboseproperties.com)
