Pasco County Market Statistics

 

This graph and table has the housing market statistics showing how many homes are For Sale, Sold and Pended. There is also a table comparing the numbers from one month, 12 months and 15 months ago.

Please note that the most important and accurate is to compare the numbers from the current month to the same month a year ago as there are normal monthly and seasonal fluctuations.

Below the table you will find more information on how best to read the graphs.

 

 

 

The number of homes for sale is of course the available inventory. Low inventory usually equals higher prices, high inventory equals lower prices.

Comparing the number of homes sold to the corresponding months from a year ago tells us whether sales are improving or not, and can help us decide whether it is a good time to buy or not.

The number of homes for sale, and the number of homes sold give us a snapshot of the present and past. There is one part of the graph that is often ignored and that is the pending sales. I believe that the pending sales, for investors is the most important statistic as it gives us a look into the future.

The pending sales are homes under contract. Normally homes that go under contract this month, will likely become sold in 30 - 90 days. Due to the number of short sales and foreclosures and the extra time required to go from contract to closing we must increase the expected time to close beyond the normal 30 - 90 days.

The best way to look at the pended sales graph is to compare it to the number of home sold in the same month. For example if 1,000 homes sold in a month and there were 1,200 pended sales we know that the number of sales will increase in the coming months. If the pended sales were at 1,000 then the sales will stay about the same, and of course if the pended sales is at 800 then we expect the sales to slow in the coming months.

 

When you start to look at the trends over several months we can get a good idea on what direction housing demand and prices will follow.

 

For example when the market got so hot in 2005 and 2006 looking at the trends we could easily predict that prices would be declining and we could see that long before the prices started to plummet. Inventory was increasing quickly, sales were declining, and the number of homes going under contract started to slowly decline, yet prices kept going up. This did not make any sense and though we could not tell when prices would decline, we knew that they must.

 

Keeping track of trends is much more accurate than any of the economists predictions or government prognosticators.