Sales of single family homes within the Huntsville Metro Area took a sudden and sharp drop during January 2010. When comparing December’s 238 homes sold, January’s 158 closings represent a 66% decline month-over-month. When taking seasonality into account year-over-year declines were moderate in comparison, disturbing nonetheless registering a 14% decent from January 2009 levels.
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
No we’re not being shy, bashful, or timid (coy) we’re just telling it like it is. Yet despite these dreadful numbers and January setting a new-low in homes sales of our Metro market, the world is not ending and there are reasonable explanations why we are experiencing such a volatile market.
Let us not so quickly forget that October-November 2009 set record sales levels to the up-side equaling the normal seasonal summer peak. The reason for all of these unseasonable swings in the market (at least to us) seems to be clearly rooted in the First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit of 2009 and its updated cousin including Existing Home Buyers (move-up/move-down/move-out) .
Make a new plan, Stan
The recent passing of the Nov 30th deadline for First Time Home Buyers and its upcoming cousin April 30th is simply laying havoc to the tried and true seasonality of a stable real estate market.
So was January just the calm between the storms? Will we see an acceleration of showing activity through March? Will April be another October setting unseasonably high records for home sales? Well time will only tell but rest assured you’ll be reading about whatever happens right here on these pages. …So why not Hop on the Bus, Gus and follow along; subscribe to our blog feed via your favorite Rss Reader or a simple email containing new blog posts as they happen.
– Elizabeth
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As you pointed out, seasonality makes it look much worse than it is, because December is generally the slowest month of the year for real estate activity, meaning that Januaries are always painful when it comes to the number of transactions closed. Hopefully things will pickup as spring progresses.
Hi Milan,
Thanks for the comment. Winter is always tough is it not. Yet with large tax cuts on the line for those in the market anyway, I agree its hard to see how things will not pick up between now and April 3oth.
Thanks Again …Elizabeth
A straight forward and even entertaining homes sale briefing, who would have guessed. You guys use to do a monthly home price brief as well. Whatever happened to that?
Hey Charles you are correct, our pricing study summaries have not been published for the last few months primarily due to the volatility of our current market mix.
E.g., We may see significant sales and price increases for homes under $15ok for one month and then the next month we see significant decreases within the same price range. The same can be said for other prices ranges as well.
On the other hand; “average” prices trek on almost completely flat, which compared to a lot of markets is a very good thing, nonetheless at the moment they don’t adequately reflect the detail underneath and may at times be down right miss-leading.
Our feeling is that the recent and current tax cut programs are inputting market forces into the equation that are just too difficult to account for, thus for now they have been put on hold.
They will be back – Tim
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