From the Cromford Report: Sometimes good news and bad news cancel each other out. If you want
to see the most optimistic chart I created today, take a look at the average price per square foot for pending listings (charted below). It just hit its high point for the year. On the other hand the glass-half-empty folks can enjoy the average price per square foot for monthly sales (charted below) which has dipped below $128 and is now lower than it was at the end of December.
What really happened is that a bunch of cheaper homes
closed yesterday. This left behind a pool of higher priced homes still
in pending status. The last working day of each month is usually a big
day for closings. In May we had 876 with an average price of $123.53,
quite a bit below the current trend line. At the end of April we saw
slightly more (939) and a higher price ($128.98) per square foot. If the
pending $/SF had stayed level or gone down this would have been a bad
sign. However the increase in the pending $/SF means we have a
preponderance of higher priced homes carried forward into June's
closings. Overall pricing remains roughly flat and the change in mix
just adds noise to the signal.
If the second half of the year behaves as normal then we
will probably see a slight downward price drift between June and
December. Annual $/SF appreciation has already dropped to 6.2%, almost
half of what it was at the end of last month.
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