My First (and last) 2005 "Quickie"

December 30, 2005

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The last settlement day of the last week of the last month of the 2005 year. The settlement companies should be clogged today with end-of-year closings. How many buyers took advantage of the new home builders incentives that required closing by 12/31/2005? It looks like quite a few. In anticipation of getting to the Market Snapshot preview next week, we pulled some data from the MLS for December to see what the trend looks like. There are some surprises! Here's what we got:

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Market "Quickie"

Loudoun County | Residential (Homes)
December 29, MTD 2005		Trend ←↑↓→	Sell	Buy
■   Avg Sales Price	$569,946	↑	■	■
■   YTD Avg Price	21.5%	↑ ↑	■	■
■   New Listings	469	↓ ↓	■	■
■   Active Listings	2,370	↓	■	■
■   New Pendings	262	↓	■	■
■   Number Sold	557	↑	■	■
■   Weeks Backlog	12.4	↓	■	■
■   Days on Market	38	↓ ↓	■	■
■   % of Sales Price	97.6%	↑	■	■
■   New Construction Homes Settled	190	? ?	■	■
Our Opinion: Extreme Market Volatility
Market Momentum: Volatile
Price Momentum: Volatile

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What is difficult to interpret in these numbers is the impact of new construction sales. Introducing new variables begs for further investigation into the past to be able to judge the current. (I hate it when I do this to myself because it gives me more research to do. If I had more automated access to the MLS data base, it would be a lot easier.) New construction is rarely put into the MLS until closing significantly impacting days on the market because it is input as zero days. Also, the sold price is usually higher than the list price. List price is the basic home. Closed price adds all the options.

Barring a technical disaster, I will have some more surprises posted by tomorrow evening (I have been working on keeping a personal commitment to keep this site up to date with new content). Check back.

In the mean time, wishing all of you a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holiday as the case may be) and a Healthy, Prosperous New Year! May all your BUBBLES stay full of gas.

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