Pending US Home Sales Back to Historically Healthy Levels as of October 2012

– Pending US Home Sales Back to Historically Healthy Levels as of October 2012 –

I sat in on a webinar this week with Steve Harney of Keeping Current Matters as he talked about what we saw in the US real estate market in 2012 and what we can reasonably expect for 2013.

I wanted to share the slide below regarding pending home sales in the United States. It compares pending home sales in the October 2010 through October 2011 time frame with the same data in the October 2011 thorough October 2012 range.

The dotted index line of 100 indicates a “healthy” pending sales figure. As you can see, pending sales have reached the “healthy” range four times in 2012 and in October, went to the highest levels we have seen all year. This is good news for the United States real estate market, as the last several years have been quite rough in most areas.

However, as the saying goes “all real estate is local,” so I wanted to look at home sales activity in Scottsdale to see if our local market saw increases in things like new sales contracts.

The interactive chart below maps new sales contracts in Scottsdale over the past five years. While you can easily see the peaks and valleys of the seasonal sales pattern, you can also see a definite strong trend line showing new contracts increasing year over year. This is good news and correlates with the national data from above.

SCOTTSDALE ARIZONA NEW SALES CONTRACTS – December 2007 through October 2012

Disclaimer: Information herein deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Data and information for top chart from Keeping Current Matters and the National Association of Realtors. The second chart uses data from the Arizona Regional MLS and can change at any time. Information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.  This post represents the opinion of the author. No warranties express or implied.