“Buyers are certainly not in trouble, but they need to keep an eye on supply. If that starts falling early this year, we could see the re-emergence of multiple offer situations.” This is Michael Orr’s and the Cromford Report quote in last month’s Bodeen-Team Newsletter. And adding to that the market appears to be strengthening in favor of sellers on a number of different fronts. Just a few weeks ago, we were reporting that our market had achieved balance. Well, the balance didn’t last long. Consider:
The Cromford Market Index is now at 117.1. This may not mean too much to you, only to say that a balanced market, deemed to be 100, is where we were just weeks ago but is now rising into the sellers’ market realm. For those of you who have not been market followers this past year, that’s okay because the market was asleep right along with you. It could very well be that the alarm has again gone off, but buyers are no longer pressing the snooze button.
The Cromford Supply Index is rising, meaning that the supply of available homes to purchase is decreasing. The Cromford Demand Index which has been at best lackluster this past year is now growing again and headed towards a Seller’s Market as well. This looks like buyers are beginning to re-enter the race.
Good news for Sellers – not so much for Buyers! But hey, we’ve been warning buyers all this past year to get in the game.
In other market evidence, Pending sales back in December totaled an awful 5516 – a low point such as we’ve not seen since January of 2008 – 7 years! However, March’s pending’s are now at 7228, an increase of 31% since December and a 20% rise in just this last month.
The “Months of Supply” index dropped a full month from 5.5 months to 4.5 currently. This is a large drop in a very short time amount of time. Sales increased by 19% this month (6038) compared to last month (5060) and by 9% over this time last year.
