Front Lines

2010 started out pretty much as expected. We saw a 10% increase in single family inventory for a total of 34 single family homes on the market and a 31% increase in townhomes coming on the market raising the available inventory to 51; still well below the 2009 January totals of 161 townhomes and 70 single family homes. We saw a 15% increase in the number of sales in the single family sector going from 20 in January '09 to 23 in January 10 but the townhome sales dropped dramatically from 81 last January to only 46 this January. Now keep in mind that we had 161 units on the market last year so part of that is a function of there being so many "good" properties to choose from. "Days On Market" for townhome sales in '08 was 74 and that dropped to 39 in '09 and for January of '10 it was only 20 so that is a positive trend. If there is something good (priced fairly, good condition and good location) it is gone quickly. Similar numbers in the single family sector were 88 DOM in '08, 68 in '09 and 56 this January. (January's number excludes one sale that was 532 DOM home that I felt unfairly skewed that stats.) In other words, January was a good month for real estate and our market is coming out of the gates with a pretty fair amount of activity.