The figures are in for January 2008. In the Reno-Sparks area sales of all existing residential (stick built, manufactured homes and condos) there were 194. There were 3,805 active listings. This gives us 19.6 months of inventory. This means that based on the rate of sales in January it would take 19.6 months to sell all the listings on the market in January. This is the highest amount of inventory we have seen to date.
As February has just come to a close we are anxiously awaiting the sales figures. We saw an increase in buyer activity in February and hope that we will see an improvement in the numbers for February. We many not see the effects of the increased activity until March's sale figures.
According to the Northern Nevada Regional MLS we saw a 480% increase in the use of FHA loans in January as compared to January 07. Conventional loans, VA loans and cash sales are all down from this time last year, although the largest number of loans are still in the conventional loan category. This is a direct reflection of the tightening of credit in the conventional loan sector.
The total number of sales in the Reno-Sparks area were down 36% from January 2007 with the average sales price only down 1% for the same time period.
Looking forward to seeing how February sales come out....