Real Estate Inventory is Seasonal
By Charles Turner[graphs and text updated 11:50AM 2.18.10 thanks to an astute reader]
In my post yesterday about January’s 2010 RMLS Market Action report I said that I would go back through previous reports to see if there was a trend in inventory levels between January and the previous December. There is a seasonal New Years Inventory Spike (NYIS). Every year since 1999, there has been an increase. The smallest increase was between 2002 and 2003 (12%). The NYIS had a higher unit increase this year compared to last year but the percentage increase was lower last year.
It’s still a large increase, even historically, but put in context it is to be expected. The optimists or pessimists might not want to hang their hat on it as it is just a part of the analysis of our real estate market.
The 2009-2010 increase is 64%, not 39%:
Inventory increase 4.9 from 7.7
4.9/7.7 = 64%
All the others need to be corrected too.
Thank you. Graphs and text now corrected.