Pending Sales Up, Inventory Down

I just received some graphs showing the trends in pending sales and market absorption.  They are very encouraging. Pending sales are currently at their highest point in more than the last year. These statistics are for Jackson County, and were provided by the Southern Oregon MLS.

The previous high of pending sales for the last year was June of 2008…where pending sales were about 168. At the reporting in March of 2009 the pending sales are at 171. Last March, pending sales were under 110. And the low point of the last year was in December of 2008 where they dipped to 100.

Other great stats:

• New listings are down 22%
• Absorption rate is down to 9 months a high of 18 months last April (6 month absorption is considered a balanced market)
• Housing affordablity index is up from 90 to 130 (the higher above 100, the more affordable)
• Then number of available homes per buyer is down from 20 to 11

So all said…it looks like positive signs for both buyers and sellers. How I would love to be able to say at some point in the near future that it is a balanced market (not a seller’s market or a buyer’s market)

I’ll try to get to more stats later.