Sunday, May 20, 2007

No Surprise - Month's Inventory Rise

At long last, I have my monthly sales data! We are squarely in buyer territory now. The average weighted month's inventory is now at 8.9 months! In other words, it would take almost 9 months to sell all the home inventory if sales continuted at the same pace. Note that big increases can come from either a drop in sales, or an increase in inventory, or a combination of both.

Zip codes in bold had a strong rise in month's inventory. There are still 8 zip codes with less than 6 months inventory (less inventory favors the seller). Of course those tend to be the particularly desirable parts of town. Four zip codes, 95815, 95624, 95648, and 95673 actually had a decrease in month's inventory. I don't post percentage changes since some zips didn't have a lot of sales.

This is not an exact science since I am relying on public data sources. What you see below is a comparison of the month prior sales with inventory collected 15 days or so into the next month. For example, the April sales are compared against inventory levels from the middle of May.

Monthly sales data is from the SacBee who gets their data from DataQuick. Available inventory is taken from ZipRealty. I started tracking some additional zip codes (which is why the March/April inventory is blank for some zips). Originally I only tracked zips that had over 30 sales (to get more statistically sound data).

6 comments:

Cmyst said...

I tried to enlarge text to read the chart, but only the blog text would enlarge. So, it's all a blur to me.

Anonymous said...

I can't read it either.

Buying Time said...

Sorry bout that....having technical difficulties. I think it is better now.

... said...

Enlarged and printed out.

Waaaay cool list.

If you mapped it, you would likely get a wedge with the point at the Capital, moving out 50 to Folsom, moving out 80 to Roseville/Rocklin/Granite Bay plus that little island of Davis/El Macero.

So, if you want just a great deal, cheapest price, most negotiating power... top of the list is where to find it. But maybe, towards the bottom of the list is where the better investments might lie.

Addl comments - 95825 is the zip where my office is and there is a new high end condo project (listed as single family in MLS) that likely put a large lump in the inventory number, but if you don't want a condo, the # months inventory is much lower.

Unknown said...

AB - how are you getting up to date sales data from SacBee? When I use the site, the last sales data is 4/17 - are you pulling data more recent?

Buying Time said...

Real - the home sales charts for April 2007

www.sacbee.com/static/live/business/real_estate/apr_2007_home_sales.html

I have noted (and so have others) that this data can be a bit sketchy (especially the % change calculations). So again...look at the trends and don't focus on individual data points.