March numbers are in

The EREB came out with their March numbers this morning, and all things considered, they were remarkably unremarkable. Sales and inventory are pretty much right on the money considering seasonality, and prices more or less stayed about the same. Though compared to last years sales and prices are down about 10-12% across the board.

Does not seem like there is any underlying explosion of sales or listings to come this spring, the 1,380 sales is right in line with what seasonality would suggest considering the January and February figures. Also true for the 7,476 currently in inventory. I'll be doing a post in the next couple days discussing seasonality, so that might be interesting to some of you, I'll also include a few projections just to see how I do.

So the bulls will probably be disappointed there is no ground swell of demand bubbling under the surface... and I'm going to have to stick a fork in my earlier thought that inventory might reach or even surpass last years. Sales will continue to rise through May before falling off, and Inventory start to clear out until September. We've barely entered spring, but given the stats through three months and all numbers staying well within their standard deviations, I'm not thinking there are any surprises likely to come on the sales and inventory front.

Prices on the other hand are not following their typical season paths (typically up 4-6% over January prices in March), though that is no surprise, seasonality really doesn't apply to prices when dealing with bubbles. Things held pretty tight month-over-month but are everything is down about 10% year-over-year.

Condo's come in slightly lower at -12.4% year-over-year (about $32,000), but actually saw a small uptick over February... thought that shouldn't really be surprising since they took such a dive in February, dropping almost 5%. It's not unusual to have a small bounce after such a sharp drop.

Speaking of sharp drops, townhouses really fell off the face of the earth in March, dropping a remarkable $32,404, or 10.5%. These make up a very small protion of the total residential picture though, so they are more prone to big swings... I had also mentioned last month that their prices had oddly held year-over-year... not anymore.

Anywho, here are the hard numbers:

Sales = 1,380
Since March '07 = -41.5% (-797)
Since March '08 = -11.4% (-177)
Since last month = +28.4% (+305)

Active Listings = 7,476
Since March '07 = +190.4% (+4,902)
Since March '08 = -21.0% (-1,988)
Since last month = +5.3% (+379)

Single Family Homes Median= $334,000
Since peak (May '07) = -16.5% (-$66,000)
Since last March = -9.7% (-$36,000)
Since six months ago = -8.6% (-$21,764)
Since last month = -0.3% (-$1,000)

Residential = $309,032
Since peak (July '07) = -12.9% (-$45,686)
Since last March = -10.1% (-$34,728)
Since six months ago = -4.9% (-$15,873)
Since last month = +0.0% (+$62)

Single Family Homes = $349,716
Since peak (May '07) = -17.9% (-$76,312)
Since last March = -9.8% (-$37,916)
Since six months ago = -3.4% (-$12,381)
Since last month = +0.7% (+$2,407)

Condos = $230,469
Since peak (July '07) = -15.2% (-$41,439)
Since last March = -12.4% (-$32,554)
Since six months ago = -8.6% (-$21,764)
Since last month = +1.6% (+$3,612)

Townhouses = $276,776
Since peak (Oct '07) = -24.8% (-$91,118)
Since last March = -10.4% (-$32,132)
Since six months ago = -12.3% (-$38,914)
Since last month = -10.5% (-$32,404)