Yesterday, Rex Nutting in Marketwatch wrote that Housing Hasn’t Bottomed Yet. My favorite line:
The immovable glut of supply will meet an irresistible decline in demand, as lenders tighten their standards and more buyers get priced out of the market with higher interest rates.
Knowing that one picture is worth a thousand words, I can’t think of a better illustration of immovable vs. irresistible than the Phoenix resale market: [Data from ARMLS]
ARMLS and the NAR predicted rising sales, rising prices and lower inventory in the second quarter of 2007 for Phoenix. [See page 1] They didn’t explain their predictions–perhaps they were figuring "How much worse can it get?"
Obviously we are going to see how much worse it can get, but from the looks of things, we won’t be seeing that any time real soon.
That graph says so much.
Just look at how listings and sales converged, sales temporarily dipped below listings, then inventory skyrocketed while sales languished.
That’s amazing.
RE: Response 1 (me)
Mea culpa!
“Sales temporarily dipped below listings” should read: “sales temporarily outpaced listings.”
NVMike-
ARMLS rather quietly indicates that period is questionable in their records. L indicates that a number of agents didn’t even bother putting homes on the MLS then. Then with properties being flipped within weeks, the stats were a mess.
It’s safe to say though, that things have gone way, way downhill since then- with no sign of the trend turning around in the near future.