Sales Show Strong Gain, Inventories Drop

News like this is what keeps Charlottesville Realtors thinking positively!


CAAR Blog » Sales Show Strong Gain, Inventories Drop: "As mentioned in CAAR’s Year-End Market Report, there was a small surge in sales in December 08 and it seems that was the national trend as well. Nationally, December existing-home sales rose unexpectedly while inventory declined, led by a surge of sales in the West, NAR says. Sales jumped 6.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.74 million units from a downwardly revised pace of 4.45 million units in November. Sales remain 3.5 percent below the 4.91 million-unit pace in December 2007. For all of 2008 there were 4,912,000 existing-home sales, 13.1 percent below the 5,652,000 transactions recorded in 2007. This is the lowest volume since 1997 when there were 4,371,000 sales. Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 11.7 percent to 3.68 million existing homes available for sale, which represents a 9.3-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a 11.2-month supply in November. “The higher monthly sales gain and falling inventory are steps in the right direction, but the market is still far from normal balanced conditions,” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. Highlights from Yun’s press conference are on REALTOR® TV."

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