January was certainly the (real estate) winter of our discontent. Was February more of the same?

For all of Durham County there were 2,070 homes listed for sale at the end of February – an increase of almost 10%. 105 sales closed in February [a drop of about 10%] meaning that it would take 19.7 months of Februarys to work through the current housing inventory. This is a another big step backward from last month’s 16 months of inventory and again the highest total I’ve seen since I started tracking these numbers.

For the 27713 zip code there were 410 homes listed at the end of February – again an increase of close to 20%. Only 19 homes sold during February leaving the adsorption rate at 21.6 months — another 50% increase.

Here’s a look at the communities we’re tracking. If you would like to see data from your community, please let us know in the comments.

I still left the column for adsorption rate, but with sales numbers so small, it isn’t useful to calculate it.

Sales showed another drop for this month, but the real news is the stunning and continued increase in listings. The total number of homes on the market is already at mid-summer levels and it’s only March 1st. My guess is that savvy homeowners are trying to list their homes early in the season, so they can sell before the tax credit expires on April 30. Buyers, on the other hand, have been held back by the snow and [for us anyway] Arctic blasts of December and January. With listings going up and closed sales declining, adsorption rates skyrocket.

I can say, however, that I certainly talked to more people in February than I have in a long time, and most of the Realtors I’ve spoken to report the same thing. Of course, none of that is guaranteed to translate into March and April closings, but it is a sign of optimism.

Tags: housing stats

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.