Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Months Supply of Homes Close to Six-Year Low

In another sign of a housing recovery, the National Association of Realtors reported today that "U.S. home resales surged in January to a 1-1/2 year high and the supply of properties on the market was the lowest in almost seven years."

The chart above shows the "months supply of homes" at the current sales rate, which fell to 6.1 months in January, the lowest level since April of 2006.  With the inventory of homes for sale falling back to historically normal levels, it's another sign that the real estate market is stabilizing, and it's only a matter for time before we see home prices trending upward. 

18 Comments:

At 2/22/2012 11:20 AM, Blogger geoih said...

Assuming you can believe those numbers. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/nar-continues-tradition-making-mockery-itself-revises-december-home-sales-5-05

 
At 2/22/2012 11:20 AM, Blogger geoih said...

Assuming you can believe those numbers. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/nar-continues-tradition-making-mockery-itself-revises-december-home-sales-5-05

 
At 2/22/2012 11:30 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

i just saw lawrence yun speak last week.

he's the chief economist for the national association of realtors.

one of his topics was why the inventory numbers were missing big piles of inventory.

he put current housing supply at 3.7 million, not 2.3.

the trend still looks to be favorable, but the months of inventory is more like 10, not 6.

 
At 2/22/2012 12:00 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

the LPS data is out as well.

for jan there were 2.26mm delinquent loans of fewer than 90 days, 1.77mm of over 90 days, and 2.08mm in foreclosure, totaling 6.08mm. as that is a significantly larger number than all of reported inventory, it's going to be a key issue to watch.

 
At 2/22/2012 12:09 PM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

I just know there is bad news out there, if I look hard enough, and read enough crackpots.

 
At 2/22/2012 12:39 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

i just know there are stupid comments out there if i just wait long enough for benji to post.

 
At 2/22/2012 1:26 PM, Blogger rjs said...

yep, its been warm this winter...home sales are seasonally adjusted...& months of supply is those on the market divided by that...

 
At 2/22/2012 1:41 PM, Blogger rjs said...

NSA chart:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ejv9Tn5p3O8/T0UJ6mCgI2I/AAAAAAAAMMQ/MCkjeRiSSw0/s1600/EHSNSAJan2012.jpg

 
At 2/22/2012 2:03 PM, Blogger kmg said...

I wonder how many homes were demolished before becoming decrepit.

On 60 minutes, in Cleveland, a foreclosed home would often get stripped of materials, effectively a $100K asset being made worthless to strip out $500 of materials..
__________________________

The US could have solved the excess houses issue simply by increasing SKILLED, LEGAL immigration. In fact, the time when it would have been easiest to do that, is passed.

 
At 2/22/2012 2:11 PM, Blogger Bill said...

I prefer Benjamin's comments over Marmico. At least he's civil.

 
At 2/22/2012 4:23 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

bill-

i must say i disagree on that.

marmico seems to actually think about issues and links to actual data.

benji makes barnyard noises, appeals to authority, and ad hominem but never actually contributes anything much.

his post here is typical of his pointless grousing.

marmico posted a perfectly civil counter argument on the "economic lessons" thread today linked to good data.

i disagree with him and have explained why, but it all seems civil and reasonable to me.

perhaps you have had a different experience, but mine seems fine.

 
At 2/22/2012 4:29 PM, Blogger Motorcycle said...

Honest question. Are all the empty homes currently in foreclosure included in this graph? If not I imagine it would take a much different tilt.

 
At 2/22/2012 4:58 PM, Blogger Bill said...

Morganovich,

Take a look at some of Marmico's old posts on Calafia Beach Pundit. I'm not saying he doesn't make decent arguments (in fact I think he was one of the first on this blog to call the housing crash and resulting financial crisis), but the posts I've seen are quite offensive.

 
At 2/22/2012 5:20 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

bill-

oops, you are correct.

he just became unbelievably offensive because he lost an argument.

 
At 2/22/2012 8:04 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Well apparently those folks at CNBC haven't gotten the memo yet or their reporting is flawed...

Foreclosures on the Rise Again

Published: Thursday, 16 Feb 2012 | 12:04 AM ET

One in every 624 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in January, up 3 percent from the previous month, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. Foreclosure activity froze in many states in 2011, due to processing delays after fraud, or so-called "Robo-signing," were uncovered in the fall of 2010. The thaw is now on...

 
At 2/23/2012 4:12 PM, Blogger Hans said...

I wish, Ben Jamin, would praise Professor Perry, as much as he does Mr Grannis...

 
At 2/23/2012 5:45 PM, Blogger Robert said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 2/23/2012 5:49 PM, Blogger Robert said...

"Are all the empty homes currently in foreclosure included in this graph?"

I can't speak for the national numbers but here in Denver the Realtor's numbers come almost exclusively from their in-house data, that is, from the MultiList. So if a bank has a property on the market or a property sold that didn't go thru the MLS, it doesn't show up. Foreclosures in process wouldn't show up but are really part of future inventory. Of course many foreclosures do go thru a Realtor, so adjusting their reported numbers is difficult.

 

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