03-06-2013, 05:07 PM
When I was selling my house, we had our little incident with my son nearly drowning (well technically I guess he did drown), while we were sitting with him as he was recovering we got a call that our buyer had walked, that was Saturday, by the following Tuesday, we had a new buyer lined up - you'll find someone else Bre.
I am by no means an expert, but I have a hard time putting too much weight behind some of these statistics. There are a couple of things that I am aware of that I *think* would heavily affect inventory numbers at the moment.
Firstly, very few people buy homes over the Dec/Jan time frame, and then there is a big push that coincides with school schedules (nobody wants to move in the middle of a school year if they can help it). This translates to people not putting homes up because if you know it has a better chance to sell at full value during a seasonal flux, then as a seller you don't put it up early. The longer it sits on the market, the more a buyer wonders what is wrong with this, and statistically, houses that stay on the market longer than average tend to sell lower compared to their appraised value than houses that sell quickly.
Secondly, and this one is probably the biggest impact, is that short sale tax forgiveness was expiring at the end of last year. Short sales typically take around 6 months to complete. This means that 1/2 way through last year, everyone upside down in their homes had to make a decision. 1) walk away, 2) try to sneak the short sale in before the end of the year, and 3) hold off to see what the legislators would do. Most people considering short sales would opt for #3. So from about mid way through the year last year, new short sales drastically declined. It wasn't until midway through January that they announced it would be extended. Low and behold, as I am hunting for houses, new short sales are starting to come on line. Considering short sales and foreclosures count for 40% of all sales here in S. Fla last year, with 1/2 the year with increasingly less SS's, it stands to reason that we should start seeing those options come back. how quickly could significantly impact housing prices, and slow what we are seeing.
This 2nd reason also impacts the average sale price as well, and would definitely have an impact on what the sales TRENDS would show. Not a single realtor anywhere draws these conclusions that I've found, so either I'm way off base with my thinking here, or I am right about these guys.
Lastly, the banks are still sitting on HUGE inventories they haven't even released yet of foreclosed properties, how long they will sit with this stuff, I have no clue. But it stands to reason that they might try to wait for a housing rally like this before trying to of load the inventory.
I am by no means an expert, but I have a hard time putting too much weight behind some of these statistics. There are a couple of things that I am aware of that I *think* would heavily affect inventory numbers at the moment.
Firstly, very few people buy homes over the Dec/Jan time frame, and then there is a big push that coincides with school schedules (nobody wants to move in the middle of a school year if they can help it). This translates to people not putting homes up because if you know it has a better chance to sell at full value during a seasonal flux, then as a seller you don't put it up early. The longer it sits on the market, the more a buyer wonders what is wrong with this, and statistically, houses that stay on the market longer than average tend to sell lower compared to their appraised value than houses that sell quickly.
Secondly, and this one is probably the biggest impact, is that short sale tax forgiveness was expiring at the end of last year. Short sales typically take around 6 months to complete. This means that 1/2 way through last year, everyone upside down in their homes had to make a decision. 1) walk away, 2) try to sneak the short sale in before the end of the year, and 3) hold off to see what the legislators would do. Most people considering short sales would opt for #3. So from about mid way through the year last year, new short sales drastically declined. It wasn't until midway through January that they announced it would be extended. Low and behold, as I am hunting for houses, new short sales are starting to come on line. Considering short sales and foreclosures count for 40% of all sales here in S. Fla last year, with 1/2 the year with increasingly less SS's, it stands to reason that we should start seeing those options come back. how quickly could significantly impact housing prices, and slow what we are seeing.
This 2nd reason also impacts the average sale price as well, and would definitely have an impact on what the sales TRENDS would show. Not a single realtor anywhere draws these conclusions that I've found, so either I'm way off base with my thinking here, or I am right about these guys.
Lastly, the banks are still sitting on HUGE inventories they haven't even released yet of foreclosed properties, how long they will sit with this stuff, I have no clue. But it stands to reason that they might try to wait for a housing rally like this before trying to of load the inventory.
Gameless (for now)