August Housing Supply and Demand
The number of resale homes sold in August was up 9.0 percent from a year prior. Inventory was down over the same period by 11.2 percent.
Putting supply and demand together, there were 6.9 months' worth of inventory for sale in August -- substantially better than August 2007's 8.4 months and just about the same as the August 2006 figure.
The 6-7 months' worth of inventory we've been seeing lately would in normal times be the hallmark of a reasonably healthy, if not exactly fast-paced, market.
But these are not normal times, as the following graph of foreclosure activity indicates:
More existing homes are entering foreclosure each month (the blue line) than are being sold. That situation is unprecedented, as far as I can tell, and it's clearly not a positive. So while the first graph would indicate that supply and demand are getting back into balance, the ever-fuller pipeline of potential must-sell inventory depicted in the second graph shows that things are more out of whack than they seem.
-- RICH TOSCANO
|
PRINT 
E-MAIL STORY
SHARE
FACEBOOK
REDDIT
NEWSVINE
DIGG
DEL.ICIO.US
BLINKLIST
