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Phoenix- February’s a “Pitiful” Month for Forecasting Sales, But We’ll Give It a Shot
On March 8, Jay Butler, director of Realty Studies at Arizona State University’s Polytechnic campus, released his home sales report for February. Butler refrained from making any projections for the coming year. In an article by Betty Beard in the Arizona Republic Butler called February: [Hat tip L!]
A "pitiful month" for forecasting events because it, along with January, is usually one of the slowest months for sales of existing homes.
In his report he elaborated:
February, like January, tends to be a poor indicator of the coming year. In addition, it is a short month, so it is typically a low month for sales activity, frequently being the lowest month of the year. For February, 4,280 homes were recorded sold, in contrast to 4,520 for January, 5,460 for a year ago and 7,935 transactions in 2005. This was the lowest February since 4,090 homes were recorded sold in 2003, which was the lowest month for 2003. So far in 2007 a total of 8,800 homes have been recorded sold in contrast to 10,715 in 2006 and 17,290 in 2005 for the same time period.
I disagree with Butler’s assessment of February as a poor sales indicator. Here’s the sales graph from 2002-2007: [Sales numbers 2002-2006 from ARMLS, 2007 from Butler***]
