Did you ever wonder how many homes sell every year in the united states? Well, I do, especially in Westchester.
| Year | US |
Supply (mon) |
Westchester |
Supply (mon) |
| 2006 | 6,478,000 | 6.5 | 9,167 | 7.5 |
| 2007 | 5,652,000 | 8.9 | 9,022 | 6.2 |
| 2008 | 4,913,000 | 10.5 | 6,339 | 10.2 |
Obviously, less homes are selling every year. However, the true indicator of how the market is performing is the supply in months. What this number means is that at the current rate of sales it would have taken 6.5 months in 2006 to sell every home on the market, assuming no other home was put up for sale. In 2008, that same number rose to 10.5 months in the US. I’m not one to make predictions, and I’m not about to start now. One thing is certain, though, real estate is cyclical. It has its ups and downs.
As for Westchester–it’s never normal. We don’t seem to follow normal market fluctuations. As you can see by the quarterly sales below, while the rest of the country was on a decline in terms of home sales, Westchester actually had an unusual increase in sales from Q3-06 to Q3-07. Go figure!
| Quarter | Single Fam | Condos | Coops | 2-5 Family | |
| Q1-06 | 3,920 | 1,060 | 1,600 | 260 | |
| Q2-06 | 3,910 | 1,200 | 1,550 | 310 | |
| Q3-06 | 4,000 | 1,030 | 1,520 | 240 | |
| Q4-06 | 4,930 | 1,320 | 1,740 | 670 | |
| Q1-07 | 5,890 | 1,710 | 2,010 | 640 | |
| Q2-07 | 5,630 | 1,470 | 2,070 | 460 | |
| Q3-07 | 5,000 | 1,370 | 2,000 | 380 | |
| Q4-07 | 4,480 | 1,340 | 1,790 | 340 | |
| Q1-08 | 3,920 | 1,060 | 1,600 | 260 | |
| Q2-08 | 3,910 | 1,200 | 1,550 | 310 | |
| Q3-08 | 4,000 | 1,030 | 1,520 | 240 | |
| Q4-08 | 3,440 | 780 | 1,570 | 350 | |
Today, the market is finally normalizing. (You didn’t actually think that what the market was doing from 2000-2005 was normal?). In terms of inventory in months, a good I consider anything below 6 months to be a seller’s market and anything above 6 months to be a buyer’s market. And by the looks of the data, it seems as though we’ve been in a buyer’s market since the last quarter of 2006 (excluding those 4 quarters proceeding Q3-06, now that was not normal).
