I haven’t posted recently about Greensboro’s housing inventory because there hasn’t been too much new to report. Over the last few months, the number of properties listed in the nine residential zip codes in Greensboro has fluctuated a bit, week to week, but has always been higher than same week numbers from 2009. So the case could be made that, even if inventory was lower in week “x” compared to the previous week, it was still higher that last year. Sometimes by as much as about 20%.

Until now.

I’ve double checked these figures more than once and it appears that for the first time in a very, very long time, the number of homes on the market is lower now than this week last year*. To me, this is pretty important.

For one thing, too much inventory in real estate puts downward pressure on prices just as much as it does with any other commodity. More supply than demand and sellers have trouble finding a price low enough to attract buyers.

For another, it’s just a relief finally have some statistic that indicates we may be righting this wayward housing ship. (And I had to be careful typing the word “ship” because as similar word is what I was really thinking…)

Add to this the fact that the average list price on houses in Greensboro has remained pretty flat for the last several months – indicating sellers have enjoyed all they can stand of “just reduced” banners on their yard signs – and maybe there really is a trend here.

Things may be different next week or next month or next quarter. And foreclosures are still looming out there, also contributing to pricing woes. But I’ll take 3% less inventory against 20% more any day.

Below are some more stats. Enjoy:

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of October 30, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

The last 12 hours have provided news stories that are dismal and dismal-er in regard to national home sales last month. So as not to  make the rest of the country feel bad about its poor numbers, Greensboro is right there with everyone else.

Sheesh.

A decline in sales was expected. The Federal Tax Rebate for home buyers has about expired (there’s an extension to close on contacts that were in place by April 30th) but for the most part, people who hurried up to find a house by the end of April also hurried to close by the original cut-off date of June 30th.

That left poor old July out in the cold. Or the extreme heat, as it turned out. Most hellish temperatures EVER. Too hot too think. Too hot to trot. And perhaps too hot to buy houses.

All in all, it’s been a fairly wretched time for anyone other than sno-cone vendors.

To be specific, there were 188 closed properties in the nine Greensboro residential zip codes in July*, compared to 244 in July 2009 and 348 in in June and . That’s a decline of 23% and a gut-flipping drop of 45%, respectively.

(I’ll see your ‘Sheesh‘ and raise you a ‘Yowzer‘).

Sale prices are a different story. The average closed price in July was $167,565. That’s only about 2% down from both July of 2009 ($171.484) and June 2010 ($172,051). What this says to me is that prices really have about bottomed out. Sellers have been squeezed as much as there is to squeeze. They’re all squozed out.

Another rather startling stat is that 28% of the closed properties in Greensboro were foreclosures. Not the highest percentage ever, but certainly the highest in last several months.

Alright, enough palaver. Here are the rest of the numbers (and purty charts):

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email. I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of August 24, 2010, and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Greensboro was recently named a “hot” housing market by Money Magazine. That’s nice and all, but what really matters is how many times pen is put to paper and properties close. By that measure, June was indeed hot for Greensboro real estate.

There were 348* closed properties in the nine residential zip codes in Greensboro. That’s up about 34% from June 2009 when there were 259 closed properties. (This is only slightly lower than June 2008, which had 388 closings, but down 19% from June 2007, when there were 428 properties closed….>meh<…)

This was the 5th straight month of improving numbers.

The average closed price is up as well, at $172,052 which is 5% higher than last June ($163,663).

The sales data by zip codes shows that almost all had year-over-year increase in sales. Only 27406 was flat. Two zips, 27401 and 27455 actually had more closings in June 2010 than in the previous two years.

The sales numbers for July will be a test, since the effects of the federal home buyer tax credit will have passed for the most part. But for now, let’s celebrate this hot, hot June.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of June 29, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Those are the numbers, a snapshot of current inventory and the average list price for all 9 Greensboro zip codes.

Although 3300 properties is down from last week’s number of 3314 (and the previous week’s – 3304) the inventory number is still too high and the average list price is still off from where we were last year.

Some more details:

• The percentage of foreclosures overall is about 8%. This has been a fairly consistent number.
• The zip code with the highest number of listings is 27410. Again, nothing new there.
• The highest priced property is $3,500,000. The lowest is $12,000.
• Of the current listings, about 18% are ‘pending’.
• 85% are single-family
• 17% are townhouses
• 13% are condominiums

At this point what we will hope is that the inventory is leveling off. One the number of properties on the market being to decline, prices will at some point start to increase. The last couple of months have had good sales data. It remains to be seen how the next couple of months will treat the housing market in Greensboro. But whatever the news, you’ll be able to find it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) as of June 29, 2010,  and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Look at that.313 closed sales in Greensboro in May. That’s the fourth month of increase in a row, and a 25% increase over May, 2009.

I know, I know. There was the Federal Home Buyer’s Tax Credit that spurred sales along. And after June 30th (or September 30th if a Senate proposal is approved), the deadline to close on existing contracts to claim the credit, there will possibly be a drop off.

So what? If the purpose of the tax credit was to get people buying houses, it worked. I’m not about to pooh-pooh the good numbers because they may not last any more than I would say Summer doesn’t count because Winter will surely return.

Better is better. And this is better. It is also 313 houses that are no longer on the market. True that until our overall inventory starts to decline, things are going to be tough for many people. But the only way to have a decrease in inventory is to have closings. Which brings us back to the good showing for May.

The average closed price was $168,440, the highest since November 2009, but 10% lower than May 2009. Prices will recover after sales pick up. That’s the way it works. The list price/closed price ratio was 96%, the same as virtually every month.

Sales were up in almost all 9 Greensboro zip codes except for 27455 which was down down by 2 and 27409 which was unchanged.

We must look at foreclosures in any discussion of real estate these days and on that front there may be some decent news. Namely, the percentage of closings that were foreclosures in May 2010 was 16%, the 6th decline in that number and down from the 23% in May 2009.

This is more hopeful data, as was last week’s Greensboro foreclosure listing numbers, that maybe (maybe, maybe) the tide is beginning to turn on this wretched chapter for the housing industry.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Not much changed in Greensboro housing inventory compared to last week. There are 3313 listings (both active and pending) across all 9 Greensboro zip codes. That is nine more than last week.

The average list price is $222,643, barely changed from last week’s 222,871.

What is a more telling statistic is the comparison with inventories this week last year. Again, we have more listings at an average lower price.

Interestingly, there is just about exactly 10% more inventory than last year and the average list price is almost exactly 10% lower.

The effect of supply and demand on price, man. It’s one of those constants in life. Like cellulite.

Here’s the rest of the parade of graphics:

It will be interesting to see when the gap between last year’s and this year’s inventory numbers – and the average list prices – start to go back towards each other.

As soon as that happens, look for it here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Of all the things that impact the housing market in any region, inventory may be the most important. The number of properties available for sale is what drives a market being dubbed “buyer’s” or “seller’s”. As with any other commodity, if there is much more on the shelves than buyers in the aisles, prices are impacted.

Unlike the price of apples, though, when a community has too much housing inventory, the impact can be widely felt. After all, properties whose value drops  will be taxed less. (You can read how property taxes are calculated in Guilford County here.) While lower taxes sounds great for the homeowner, lower tax revenues across a large area mean drastic changes for the entire community.

At any rate, tracking the housing inventory in Greensboro shows what everyone probably knows: There’s a great many properties for sale. As of June 5th, per our local Multiple Listing System (the database all properties listed by area Realtors) showed there are 3304 residential properties on the market. These include both ‘active’ and ‘pending’ listings. I include those units whose sales are pending because until they close, they’re not sold. And there has been many a fumble twixt contract and key exchange.

Compared with the same week last year, inventory is up. This week last year there were 3024 homes listed.

At the same time, the average list price is down from the same week last year. $222,871 this year versus $244,812 last year.

These prices are averages across all property types, across all zip codes. The ‘price of apples’ in some zip codes is decidedly more robust than in others:

Of course, some of those 3304 listings are indeed slated to close. Keeping a good thought towards that, the break down of active/pending listings in property types is this:

And active/pending by zip code is this:

Sadly, there is a portion of these listings that are foreclosures. The breakdown of the percentage of foreclosures in the overall numbers follow:

Eventually, there will be more buyers and fewer available properties. Until then, maybe we should get used to applesauce.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities.

Nothing shattering in the new foreclosure listings in Greensboro last week. There were 15 new listings, compared with 19 the week before but more than the two weeks prior (12  & 14). The only slightly good news is that the trend for rolling 12-week periods shows a decline. There were 181 foreclosures listed in the 12 weeks ending May 30th. This is the lowest that metric has been since the 12-week period ending April 18th.

*Meh*

As has been the case almost from the beginning of this sad state of affairs,  zip codes 27405 and 27406 are carrying the lion’s share of the listings, with 19% and 24%, respectively. But 27407 is now approaching their numbers with 18% of the foreclosures.

A big change has been in the 27410 zip code. At the beginning of the year, only about 7% of total listings were located there. Now it is about 13%. It should be noted that 27410 is by far the largest zip code both geographically and in regards to the number of overall listings, so that fact that there is a growing percentage of foreclosures isn’t surprising. You can read a profile of the 27410 zip code I wrote here.

Of the new foreclosure listings last week, the 15 were (mostly) spread evenly over 6 of 9 zips.

Comparing last week with the corresponding week from last year, and 2010 has been worse in both the actual number of listings for the week and in the 12-week rolling period. Way worse:

Frankly, there will probably be new foreclosures coming on the market for some time. Even while things may start improving in the economy as a whole, the foreclosure process take weeks and months to work through the pipeline. So we won’t see properties hit the market for some time that are already headed that way.

However the numbers shake out, you can read about them here.

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If you have questions, comments or a good joke to share shoot me an email.  I’m a full time Realtor®, I love what I do and would be thrilled to hear from you.

* All data from Triad Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and is only as good as the information entered, which is done by humans, who make errors. The information is only for those residential zip codes for Greensboro and does not include the surrounding communities