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Metro Atlanta Report:
Metro Atlanta
Report: A Glimmer of Good News
By Steve Palm
Smart
Numbers
There is actually a
glimmer of good news to report this month. There were 4,185 closings for
all single family in October. This was another large year-to-year
decrease, 31.0%, but after lags (late reported) are reported October may
exceed September’s result.
Historically,
Octobers’ closings have always been less than September. It will be
close, but still a good chance it will happen, as only a few hundred
lags will be needed to surpass September.
Another good sign to
report is that 4,970 single-family homes went under contract in October
versus 4,399 in September. If the ratios hold out there should also be
more closings in November than in October.
Why is our market
starting to turn around? First, the FED dropped interest rates a half a
point in September and now a quarter of a point the end of October.
Second, our prices are dropping and in some areas are dropping a lot.
The average price
for condos and townhomes was $183,735 in October or a decline of 4.2%
from October 2006. It is also the lowest reported average price for
condos and townhomes since July 2005.
The average price
for single family detached was $248,333 in October or a decline of 0.3%
from the same year ago period. This was also the lowest average price
reported since February 2006.
There were 1,134
expired listings for condos and townhomes in October. This is the third
highest monthly total of all time and when you add September’s record
number to it you would exceed the total for all of the year 2000.
There were 6,436
expired listings for single family detached in October. This was just
short of being a record, as it was only 120 less than September’s all
time record. I believe we will still see more records broken for expired
listings before 2007 is over.
There were 3,369
withdrawn listings for all single family and ranks only behind August as
the highest reported for a month.
The days-on-market
for all single family was 90.8 in October. This is the highest reported
DOM since February 1998.
Plus, the average
year to date DOM for 2007 is 87.0 and if this does not go down by
year-end it will be the highest yearly average since 1994!
The inventory levels
are not dropping in the Fall as in the past, as the record number of
foreclosures keeps being added to the inventory. This is a large part of
our lower prices, but at the same time are helping fuel our minor
comeback, because they are being absorbed at a greater rate than the
rest of the market. I believe there is a whole lot more foreclosures to
still hit our housing market.
There are a couple
encouraging signs in October and I would normally be optimistic that we
would be starting our turnaround. However, the equity markets have
weakened again, gasoline is soaring, and the credit markets are
unstable. We will need a few more months of positive numbers before a
definitive positive outlook can be projected.
If we can stay out
of recession, I believe 2008 will definitely improve.
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