Last week I discussed the precipitous drop in Twin Cities Pending Home Sales activity. Today MAAR released another week’s activity report and the extended drop in buyer activity continues.
While we had a few more pending sales than the week prior, we’re still 34.6% below the same week last year. This great disparity is no doubt the continued hangover from the expiration of the tax credit but this hangover is quickly becoming a wicked one. These are historically the busiest weeks of the year and instead our sales in May were anemically similar to what we’d usually see in November.
Thankfully we’ve also seen a dramatic drop of new listing activity as well, which has helped keep a lid on total inventory of homes for sale.
This market lull isn’t bad for everyone – buyers still in the market to buy a home that were looking in the weeks leading up to the tax credit expiration have found that the 40% less competition has lead to better quality inventory to choose from. Several of my buyers have located houses since the expiration and in each case the buyer and I felt that the house was better than what we were seeing for the same price prior to the tax credit expiration.
