August Pending Home Sales Hit New High
Yes, there is chaos on Wall Street. Yes, it will no doubt affect the national economy.
The relevant question for this column is, “How will it effect the Las Vegas economy?”
Pending single family transactions are at the highest level of the whole year at 6466 today at 11:30 AM. That is up 143 over the August. We have been above 6200 since our record keeping began in June, and have yet to break 6500. Given numbers for closed transactions with pendings at these levels, I would have to say things look good of September. We should see closed numbers comparable to July and August.
Closings usually drop in September and remain lower through fall. As we have mentioned, our current buyers are not the usual suspects.
Mid-month closed transactions at mid-day stand at 866. This is higher than July 15 or August 15. They would be higher if we look again after 5 pm, and we may, but no matter. The word “strong” remains descriptive.
Listing totals remain flat. Homes priced under $150/sq ft – my definition of affordable – are slightly up. Demand is strong. Supply is steady – thanks to banks slowly feeding in REO’s. Virtually no new homes are being built. When the average dude can again get a mortgage to buy a house, what do you think will happen to prices?
AIG, an insurance company they say, is in trouble today. Will they continue to insure Florida and the Gulf Coast? And where will people move to escape high insurance, high snow drifts, and high California prices? Demographics being what they are, I still feel plenty will see Las Vegas in their headlights.
You can read a lot of doom and gloom out there. Misery loves company. I think the “doomers” are the guys who missed the last boom, now they are happy that people are suffering, and because they don’t have a dog in the fight, because they want to see the bottom to fall out instead of building to recovery, and because they aren’t buying now, they will miss the next boom as well.
The rest of us can take heart. The glass is also half full. After the election, the winning party will begin to get a handle on the financial nincompoops, and as Peter Sellers once said, “There will be new growth in the spring … in the garden.”
If sales remain at or near the current levels for the next couple of months, we will match the fall closing totals during the “boom” and we will have done it without the usual Las Vegas buyers.
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