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* September Housing Numbers for Parkwood, Woodcroft, and Elsewhere in Durham

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Last month we predicted that we had seen somewhat of a floor in the south Durham housing market. Did that turn out to be right, or did we see another decline? The answer is . . . mixed. Here are the details.

For all of Durham County there were 2,395 homes listed for sale at the end of September – a drop of a percent. 207 sales closed in August, an increase of about 4%. Using September figures, it would take 11.6 months to work through our current inventory which is an improvement of 0.6 months — or 2.5 weeks.

For the 27713 zip code there were 490 homes listed at the end of September – again a drop of just over a percent. Only 38 homes sold during September, almost exactly the same as in August. That combination moved the adsorption rate to 12.9 months – a drop of 0.9 months. This also makes the second month where the 27713 zip code posted worse numbers than Durham as a whole.

All of the above also show that pending numbers aren’t converting into closings at the same rate as earlier this summer. That is not surprising — closings are taking longer to pull together, so an exact conversion of pendings to closings isn’t as easy to find. Nonetheless, the pendings still serve as a general trend, so they are still worth looking at. Here’s the chart updated for September.

	April	May	June	July	August	September
*Durham County*	657	490	318	277	298	292
27713 area code:	166	112	60	40	53	61

So county-wide pendings are about the same as in August while the 27713 pendings are up about 15%. This implies that south Durham is looking to move back into its place as the housing market leader. Time will tell.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	78	8	9.8 [-0.3]	$171,241 96% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	63	3	21.0 [+8.2]	$168,667 96% of list price
Woodlake	20	1	20.0 [-1.0]	$182,900 99% of list price
Parkwood	28	0	N/A	N/A
Chancellors Ridge	14	3	4.7 [-0.6]	$211,633 100% of list price
Wynterfield	11	4	2.87 [-10.2]	$131,240 99% of list price
Grandale	7	0	N/A	N/A
Wellington Forest	5	1	5.0	$280,000 97% of list price
Audubon Park	9	0	N/A	N/A
Colvard Farms	11	0	N/A	N/A

Woodcroft and Hope Valley Farms continue to hold up their end of the market. In fact, one our of every five homes sold in south Durham this month was sold in Woodcroft. Parkwood dropped the ball this month, but it was certainly picked up by Wynterfield, which was the second most sold neighborhood in September. Aububon Park had its second straight month with disappointing figures, so it is starting to look like those summer sales numbers might have been a fluke.

It is also worth noting that September is usually the start of the “slow season” in real estate as kids go back to school and people are reluctant to move. That might be masking some of the recovery we saw in September

So, we didn’t get back to July numbers, but we did see a small improvement from August lows. I’m still hopeful that we will see small improvements through the fourth quarter with the possibility of some real improvements starting in 2011. As always, we’ll be here next month to report on what happened.

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* Lifestyles of the Triangle’s Rich and Famous

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

3801 Hope Valley Rd - Currently listed at $450,000

OK, I can’t talk about their lifestyles, but I can talk about their real estate . . . .

The Triangle Business Journal reminded us last week that they keep a database of all Wake/Durham/Orange County home sales of over $350,000. If you like to follow the sales of high-end [and not quite high-end] home in the Triangle, this is a great resource.

Oh, if you’re curious — the largest sale in Durham County was a home in the Carramore development, which was sold to Kevin and Jane White back in March for $1,400,500.

Here’s the page with the Home Search Window.

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* August Housing Numbers for Parkwood, Woodcroft, and Elsewhere in Durham

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

So . . . . August. Was it another month of gut-wrenching drops like the media lives for? Was is a small decline, like I predicted, or will it surprise us all and be a decent month? Let’s take a look.

For all of Durham County there were 2,419 homes listed for sale at the end of August – a drop of about 5%. Only 199 sales closed in August, a drop of about a third. Using August figures, it would take 12.2 months to work through our current inventory. That’s an increase of 2.1 months, or about 20%

For the 27713 zip code there were 497 homes listed at the end of August – a decline of about 8%. Only 36 homes sold during August, an decrease of just about a third. That swing in completed sales moved the adsorption rate to 13.8 months – an increase of 3.2 months

As we predicted last month, housing sales continued their declines in August – in part due to the tax credit pulling sales from July and August into May and June. As a peek at sales going forward, we’ve looked at pending sales as of the 1st of the month. Here’s the updated chart;

	April	May	June	July	August
*Durham County*	657	490	318	277	298
27713 area code:	166	112	60	40	53

August pendings show an increase from the July bottom, which gives us some hope that the local market is finding some sort of a floor. I’m optimistic that September sales will rebound back to, or close to, July sales numbers, which will give us something small to build on going into the Fall.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	81	8	10.1 [+0.3]	$187,800 98% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	64	5	12.8 [+4.7]	$177,760 99% of list price
Woodlake	21	1	21.0 [0.0]	$217,280 95% of list price
Parkwood	23	4	5.8 [-14.2]	$149,750 98% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	16	3	5.3 [-1.7]	$243,167 96% of list price
Wynterfield	13	1	13.0	$135,000
Grandale	6	2	3.0 [-0.5]	$217,500 97% of list price
Wellington Forest	7	0	N/A	N/A
Audubon Park	11	1	11.0 [+8.0]	$215,000 96% of list price
Colvard Farms	7	0	N/A	N/A

As usual, Parkwood, Hope Valley Farms and Woodcroft account for the lion’s share of the homes sold in the 27713 zip code — almost half of the sales this month. Also worth noting is that Audubon Park has fallen to earth after several months of amazing sales. Overall, however, the individual neighborhood numbers are all over the place — some up, some down. This is something we might expect from a market that is approaching a bottom. Some local markets will “bounce” a little bit faster than others would

As I said earlier, I believe this is the bottom of the dip caused by the end of the homebuyer tax credit. the numbers imply that we will see a small recovery in September followed by the normal cyclical drop associated with the Fall. We’ll see next month whether my crystal ball is still callibrated.

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* July Home Sales — The Sky Is Not Falling!

Monday, August 30th, 2010

If you have followed the housing stats we post here on Bull City Real Estate, you know that we have been predicting a sharp decline in the sales figures for July since at least May, two month prior. Also, we identified the cause back then — July sales were being pushed into may and June to take advantage of the Homebuyer Tax Credit. It’s almost exactly like payday lending where you get a little now, but pay for it with interest on payday.

Apparently media outlets do not read this humble blog, because those July numbers, expected though they were, were clearly a sign that the sky was falling. Take a look at these articles for example;

US Existing Home Sales Nose-dive in July — Triangle Business Journal
Home Sales Collapse in the Triangle — News & Observer
Triangle Home Sales Plummet In July, But Prices Rise — Triangle Business Journal

Plummet? Collapse? Yes, the decline in July numbers was large – over a third in some places. It was, however, completely predictable and expected. Despite what the media is telling you, it is not a crisis. Housing sales were really slow in July, they will probably be slow in August, but we should see some sort of equilibrium going forward from there. We may not like the level it will be at then, but at least it will be level [assuming the Feds don't go messing around with the housing market again to buy votes].

Don’t take my word for it — I have a second opinion. from the former mayor, no less

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* July Housing Numbers for Parkwood, Woodcroft, and Elsewhere in Durham

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

The last month’s analysis, I predicted a significant drop in closed sales in July as the Federal tax credit expired. While the deadline for taking the credit was extended to the end of September, the vast majority of qualifying sales were completed in June. Did the rush to close sales in June hurt our July numbers as much as I predicted?

For all of Durham County there were 2,557 homes listed for sale at the end of July – an increase of about 2%. Only 252 sales closed in July, a drop of over 45%. Last month, I predicted a significant drop in closed sales, but even I did not expect quite as large a drop. Using July figures, it would take 10.1 months to work through our current inventory. That’s a huge, and somewhat deceiving number.

For the 27713 zip code there were 540 homes listed at the end of July – again, about a 2% increase. 51 homes sold during July, an decrease of just over 60%. That swing in completed sales moved the adsorption rate to 10.6 months – again a huge and deceiving increase.

Both of those figures look really depressing taken by themselves. It’s clear, however, that the drop in July sales is a reflection of the huge increases we saw in June. As expected, most buyers tried to get their closings done in June for the tax credit money.

Last month we took a look at the number of sales pending at the end of the month, since that is somewhat of an indicator of what is ahead. Here is how those numbers look today;

	April	May	June	July
*Durham County*	657	490	318	277
27713 area code:	166	112	60	40

July pendings continued the decline of earlier months, but not quite as severly. Based on that, I would think we will see another fall in August sales, but not by as much — perhaps 10%.

Speaking of neighborhoods, here are the ones we look at each month.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	78	8	9.8 [+6.7]	$164,125 97% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	73	9	8.1 [+4.4]	$243,177 98% of list price
Woodlake	21	1	21.0 [+18.4]	$189,900 100% of list price
Parkwood	20	1	20.0 [+16.7]	$117,000 98% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	14	2	7 [+4.7]	$299,500 97% of list price
Wynterfield	29	0	N/A	N/A
Grandale	7	2	3.5 [+0.5]	$287,450 97% of list price
Wellington Forest	6	1	6.0	$238,000 98% of list price
Audubon Park	9	3	3.0 [+1.3]	$203,000 97% of list price
Colvard Farms	10	1	10.0	$900,000 95% of list price

Again, these numbers look scarier than they probably are, especially numbers like Woodlake and Parkwood where sales dropped to almost zero. Parkwood, in fact, is exactly where you would expect a strong turn, since homes in Parkwood are perfect for the first-time buyers who closed in June. Oh, and Audubon Park continued it’s amazing run as the community to watch.

The July numbers certainly support my contention that we’ve passed the peak of the 2010 housing market. Despite this month’s doom and gloom, it is worth noting that people are still buying and selling houses in numbers that are not unreasonable, and opportunities are still out there.Send me an email if you would like to hear more.

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* June Housing Stats For Woodcroft, Parkwood and Elsewhere in Durham

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

It’s the 1st of July — where did the first half of the year go? In any case, the sun is [really] out, so let’s see if it heated up the real estate market.

For all of Durham County there were 2,506 homes listed for sale at the end of June – again within a percent or so of last month. 468 sales closed in June, another increase about 30%. That means that it would take 5.3 months like June to work through the current housing inventory. That’s a drop of almost two months, another great improvement going into the summer.

For the 27713 zip code there were 528 homes listed at the end of June – another roughly 5% drop from May. 128 homes sold during May, an increase of close to 20%s. That huge increase in closings moved the adsorption rate to 4.1 months – another drop of a month.

Now for the bad news. As you know if you read these posts regularly, I believe a lot of the sales over the April – June period were driven by the Federal tax credit [which appears like it will be extended to allows closings past June 30]. To attempt to get a handle on that, we’ve been tracking the number of pending listings, most of which should close in the next 60 days. Here’s the new set of those numbers;

	April	May	June
*Durham County*	657	490	318
27713 area code:	166	112	60

In each successive month, the number of pendings has dropped significantly. Based on the pending sales as of 7/1, I would predict that closed sales will drop about 25 percent city-wide in July and possibly even farther in south Durham. On the other hand, a drop of even 25% would only put everything back in balance, so it’s not all doom and gloom either.

Speaking of neighborhoods, here are the ones we look at each month.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	77	25	3.1 [-7.5]	$194,290 98% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	74	20	3.7 [-0.1]	$189,910 98% of list price
Woodlake	21	8	2.6 [+0.2]	$235,344 99% of list price
Parkwood	23	7	3.3 [0.0]	$127,371 98% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	16	7	2.3 [-18.7]	$256,429 96% of list price
Wynterfield	24	1	24.0 [+13]	$168,000 97% of list price
Grandale	9	3	3.0	$358,933 95% of list price
Wellington Forest	6	0	N/A	N/A
Audubon Park	10	6	1.7 [+1.1]	$227,400 98% of list price
Colvard Farms	10	0	N/A	N/A

Many neighborhoods were able to take part in the strong sales in June — especially Woodcroft and Hope Valley Farms. As we all know, the housing market in south Durham is largely defined by those two subdivisions. Wynterfield contines to be the “problem child” with sluggish sales continuing in June. On the other end, Audubon Park continues its amazing run of strong months. Apparently no one told them the housing market collapsed a couple years ago.

As I noted above, I believe this may be the high-water month for the 2010 real estate market. The Federal tax credit did a great job of pulling sales from the latter half to 2010 into the second quarter. the real question now may be whether that is a short-term dip, or a larger problem. Either way, we’ll be here reporting on it next month.

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* May Housing Stats for Woodcroft, Parkwood and Elsewhere in Durham

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

OK, I admit it – I can’t come up with anything catchy for this intro. Let’s go straight to the numbers, shall we?

For all of Durham County there were 2,543 homes listed for sale at the end of May – almost exactly the same number as in April. 357 sales closed in May, an increase about 40%. That means that it would take 7.1 months like May to work through the current housing inventory. That’s a drop of 3 months, which is a great improvement.

For the 27713 zip code there were 561 homes listed at the end of May – a small drop from April. 109 homes sold during May, almost double April’s numbers. That huge increase in closings moved the adsorption rate to 5.1 months – a great move towards health in the housing market

Last month we talked about the effects of the Federal tax credit. As you probably know, homes had to be under contract by the end of April, and they have to close by the end of June. You could see the effects of that in the number of pending listings, which were very inflated at the end of April. Here’s what they looked like at the end of May.

Durham County: 490 [April 657]
27713 area code: 112 [April 166]

As you can see, that “tax credit backlog” started to shrink in May as those transactions from late March and April started to close. The pending sales numbers seem to support June closings at about the same level as May, which will do a long to eat through the backlog of listings in some of our neighborhoods.

Speaking of neighborhoods, here are the ones we look at each month.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	85	8	10.6 [-2.3]	$166,588 98% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	84	22	3.8 [-1.8]	$205,277 98% of list price
Woodlake	19	8	2.4 [-4.3]	$231,613 98% of list price
Parkwood	20	6	3.3 [-7.2]	$148,483 99% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	21	1	21 [+11.5]	$315,589 99% of list price
Wynterfield	22	2	11	$144,170 98% of list price
Grandale	9	0	N/A	N/A
Wellington Forest	5	2	2.5	$315,000 97% of list price
Audubon Park	3	5	0.6 [-1.4]	$227,400 99% of list price
Colvard Farms	13	3	4.3	$833,333 96% of list price

While most neighborhoods reflected the general improvement in the market, some are still struggling. Wynterfield in particular is seeing a slow recovery from the lows of last winter. Woodcroft is posting some stronger numbers, although the large number of homes on the market is still making the numbers look worse than they perhaps are. On the other hand, the other two mainstays of the South Durham market – Parkwood and Hope Valley Farms – have returned to the market strength one would expect of them. And Audubon Park posted improvement on
its impressive numbers of April – turnover there is less than a month!

The numbers show that June should be a solid month for real estate in Durham. We’re starting to see a decline in the number of homes available, which should bring more price stability to the housing market. There certainly will be some turbulence in July and August as we transition frm a market propped up be Federal intervention, but I’m optimistic that we can get through that. Either way, we’ll be here at the start of July to let you know how things are going.

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April Housing Stats for Woodcroft, Parkwood and Elsewhere in Durham

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

April is when flowers start to bloom, home buyers come out in force, and the $8,000 Federal tax credit expired. Which of those had more of an effect on the market?

For all of Durham County there were 2,551 homes listed for sale at the end of April – an increase of almost 5%. 251 sales closed in April, which is an increase of about 20%. That means that it would take 10.1 months like April to work through the current housing inventory. That a drop of 1.2 months — another step towards a stable market

For the 27713 zip code there were 579 homes listed at the end of April – an increase of just over 5%. 58 homes sold during March, a 16% increase. The combination of increased listings and increased closings puts the adsorption rate at 10.0 months – another small step as the market firms up.

With the Federal Tax Credit expiring at the end of April, it might be worth looking at the number of homes sales pending at the end of the month. That should give us some idea of the number of transactions we’ll see in May and June. It’s not perfect — some of these will not close until later in the year, others will fall out of contract and not close at all. Nonetheless, here are the current numbers

Durham County: 657
27713 area code: 166

Those are both pretty solid numbers and a cause for some optimism heading into summer.

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.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	90	7	12.9	$162,214 99% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	79	14	5.6	$184,429 98% of list price
Woodlake	20	3	6.7	$210,633 98% of list price
Parkwood	21	2	10.5	$159,500 97% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	19	2	9.5	$313,750 99% of list price
Wynterfield	24	0	-	N/A
Grandale	9	3	3.0	$287,000 96% of list price
Wellington Forest	6	0	-	N/A
Audubon Park	2	1	2.0	$192,000 98% of list price
Colvard Farms	13	0	-	N/A

On a neighborhood level, recovery is still uneven. Hope valley Farms backed down from the March numbers, while Woodcroft and Parkwood both took a small step back. I should also note that this is the second month without sales for Wynterfield, Wellington Forest and Colvard Farms.

Like I said last month, I still believe this will be a fairly solid summer for real estate. The tax credit will continue to power sales until the end of June [qualifying sales must close by June 30], and that momentum should drive us through the end of the 2010 selling season. To find out if I’m right, watch these pages.

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March Housing Stats for Woodcroft, Parkwood and Elsewhere in Durham

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

We know that January and February were rough real estate months in Durham. I’ve predicted that March would be when we turned the corner. Let’s see if I’m right.

For all of Durham County there were 2,435 homes listed for sale at the end of March – an increase of almost 20%. 216 sales closed in March, which doubles the closings in February. That means that it would take 11.3 months like March to work through the current housing inventory. This brings us back much closer to a stable market — remember the rates for January and February were well into the teens – but we’re not quite there yet.

For the 27713 zip code there were 539 homes listed at the end of March – another 30% increase in listings. 50 homes sold during March, more than doubling sales in February. The combination of increased listings and increased closings puts the adsorption rate at 10.8 months — exactly half of the February total.

It’s worth noting again the staggering increase in total listings every month this year. Let’s put those numbers next to each other [county wide listings/27713 listings]

July: 2,046/427
December 1,774/286
January: 1,896/335
February: 2,070/410
March: 2,435/539

So in February we already matched the inventory from the height of last summer, and March posted significant gains in both areas. Sales are there, so once we burn through the new listings flooding the market, things look promising. It’s certainly possible
that the jump in listings relates to the timing of the Federal tax credit — we’ll see how true that is over the next two months.

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.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	87	12	7.3	$107,700 98% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	75	1	75.0	$262,000 99% of list price
Woodlake	21	2	10.5	$326,250 95% of list price
Parkwood	19	3	6.3	$135,383 86% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	19	4	4.8	$213,10098% of list price
Wynterfield	18	0	-	N/A
Grandale	10	1	10.0	$325,000 88% of list price
Wellington Forest	5	0	-	N/A
Audubon Park	15	2	7.5	$217,000 98% of list price
Colvard Farms	12	0	-	N/A

[As a side note, there are a lot of subdivisions with one listing. 82 different subdivisions in the 27713 area code have at least one listing]

As you can see, the rebound is uneven. Woodcroft and Parkwood, for example, have shown quite a rebound while Hope Valley Farms is still in the doldrums. I can’t believe, however, that will be a long term trend

Watch for the effects of the Federal tax credit to intensify over the next two months as buyers scramble to get a home under contract by the April 30 deadline. Expect to see the number of listings level off as it is almost too late to list now and sell before the credit expires. closings, however, will continue to rise through June, then level off for third quarter 2010.

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NAR Releases Local Market Report for Durham

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Earlier today, the National Association of Realtors released their Local Market Report for the Durham market covering the 4th Quarter of last year. There is a ton of information in the charts and graphs, but the executive summary is that the Durham market has been holding its own better than the national average, but the unemployment situation [which is worse than the national average] clouds any future projections. Go, take a look at the NAR figures and tell us what you think.

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