July 2009

One of the most basic things that we do as humans is look for patterns in our world.  It helps us make sense of things.  As a Realtor, I spend a good amount of time immersed in the numbers associated with the real estate market.  So, I decided to take some time and see if I can’t find a pattern in some sales numbers over the past few years.

These are the total numbers for sales of residential properties in a sample of some of the nearby school districts.  The data was pulled from Realcomp on July 2^nd.  It closely agrees with data from MLXChange over the same time.

So, what does this tell us?  We see some trends.  Sales in most areas picked up in the second half of each year.  The number of sales has trended up or stayed relatively flat in most of the outlying communities.  Ann Arbor’s numbers had a spike in the latter part of 2007, in no small part due to the upheaval at Pfizer, but apart from that the number of houses being sold has not significantly declined. 

This chart traces the total for all regions from the above chart, and we can see clearly that the second half of the year outperforms the first.  In fact, in 2007, there was an 18% rise in sales volume in the second half of the year, and in 2008 it was 14%.  If we can expect the trend to continue this year, there are likely to be about 1750 to 1820 homes sold in these areas in the second half of the year.  Could yours be among them?

Here, from the Ann Arbor board's compiled statistics, we have the average sales price for all residential home sales month by month between January of 2008 and May of 2009:

As you can see, May showed a massive upsurge back toward 2008 levels.  Is this a sign of the recovery we all hoped was coming?  The worst of the crisis may be over. We won't know unless the trend continues. 

ALICE RODERICK- INTEGRITY-EXPERIENCE- IN REAL ESTATE

The Charles Reinhart Co. 734 646 0797