Friday, March 18, 2011
RMLS Stats for Eugene & Lane County–FEB 2011
February Stats are in and it appears that the sales activity in the Greater Lane County area has decreased compared to February 2010. Closed sales were down 10.1% and pending sales were down a whopping 19.9%. With just a half month of inventory less than 2010, 2011 looks somewhat bleak. However this optimistic girl would like to point out that February was notably better than last month. Closed sales were up an unimpressive 4.6%, but pending sales increased 14.4%. That is what I am talking about! The good news for the sellers out there is that new listings actually decreased 12.1% with the number of new listings at 407 compared to 463 in January.
Hopefully that will give sellers the opportunity to sell those homes that have been just sitting on the market watching foreclosures and short sales exchanging hands. My gut tells me however that these numbers are most likely skewed. Those clever Realtors out there know that if you cancel a listing in December and relist it in January that listing will be assigned a new MLS number, making that listing appear fresh. At first glance, buyers may see this as “tricky”, however those agents are contracted to represent the seller and are looking out for their best interest. That may be good for sellers, but not my stats! As you can see in the graph below, historically new listings end the year as 300ish, but January it bumps to 500ish. I can assure you that it is not because January is a hot selling month.
The following graph displays the closed sales in Lane County over the last Three Years. You can see the 2011 number are a bit flat for this season of the selling cycle. I would expect to see a significant jump next month, but only time will tell.
Lastly, the most telling graph is the average Sales price over the past 10 years. When comparing this February with that of 2010 the average sales price decreased 15.4%, the median down 16.3%. When looking at the data from just last month we can see that the average sales price dropped from $197,800 to $179,400 (-9.3%), while the median price fell from $167,000 to $159,100 (-4.7%). Seasoned buyers know that the best opportunity to buy is in the slow Nov-Feb season. Personally I have seen experienced investors buying up investment properties left and right. When they are no longer able to sit on their hands because the deals are just too good I become confident. The indicators are presenting! Is this the bottom?
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