Prowse & Company Weekly Market Report 8/24/06
Today’s Wall St Journal has an article discussing the national real estate market and providing some regional statistics. We can compare this information to our local Kitsap County market to see how we are doing.
The article cites that sales of existing homes clocked double-digit declines in the West, Midwest and Northeast in July compared with a year earlier, and that sales in the South were down a more modest 7% on the year and 1.2% from June. The article reported that nationally existing-home sales last month fell 4.1% from June to an annual pace of 6.33 million units, a rate 11.2% lower than a year earlier. By region, in contrast to the South, the pace of sales compared with year-earlier results fell 18% in the West, 12.5% in the Northeast and 10.1% in the Midwest.
The number of closed sales year to date in the Kitsap County Market in July was down 10% compared to a year ago, and the number of closed sales in July (388) was down 16% compared to the number closed in June - our market appears to be slowing considerably but is performing better than the western region of the country year to date.
The article also reports that the inventory of unsold homes nationwide rose 3.2% to a record 3.85 million, a 7.3-month supply at the July sales rate. In contrast the Kitsap County inventory is only 4.4 months at the July sales rate, though this is nearly double the inventory of a year ago.
Hope this provides you with some perspective about our current market.
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