Too many For Sale signs has long been a huge sword hanging over this capital-area housing market. But they've fallen back to July 2005 levels in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties, according to the newest March report from Sacramento property researcher TrendGraphix.
March ended with 8,189 homes for sale in the four county area - 19 percent of them bank repos.
Home builders, too, in the capital region have also whittled exceess inventory - houses already built or almost built without buyers - to levels last seen in early 2005.
So available inventory, bottom line, is back to a time when there was a buying frenzy going on. It's a good indicator on both fronts for the market to reach equilibrium. Of course, there's the big question of the "shadow inventory," those homes inhabited by people who aren't paying the mortgage. No one seems to have a good grip on how many are those are headed onto the market in coming months - or what it might mean for the market.
Nonetheless, inventory is falling as prices fall.
From TrendGraphix, here are the numbers of For Sale signs in the four-county area over the past year:
2008:
March 13,116
April 12,601
May 12,366
June 11,854
July 11,644
August 11,369
September 11,022
October 10,879
November 10,093
December 9,526
2009
January 8,951
February 8,629
March 8,189
March ended with 8,189 homes for sale in the four county area - 19 percent of them bank repos.
Home builders, too, in the capital region have also whittled exceess inventory - houses already built or almost built without buyers - to levels last seen in early 2005.
So available inventory, bottom line, is back to a time when there was a buying frenzy going on. It's a good indicator on both fronts for the market to reach equilibrium. Of course, there's the big question of the "shadow inventory," those homes inhabited by people who aren't paying the mortgage. No one seems to have a good grip on how many are those are headed onto the market in coming months - or what it might mean for the market.
Nonetheless, inventory is falling as prices fall.
From TrendGraphix, here are the numbers of For Sale signs in the four-county area over the past year:
2008:
March 13,116
April 12,601
May 12,366
June 11,854
July 11,644
August 11,369
September 11,022
October 10,879
November 10,093
December 9,526
2009
January 8,951
February 8,629
March 8,189
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