Available Housing Inventory In Charlotte, NC. Decreasing Substantially in 2011

Housing inventory is a good indicator of the housing market. generally this time of the year there is less inventory than the spring and the summer because people do not want their homes showed during the holiday's. However; the trend of available inventory has even the skeptics scratching their heads right now. There is a large consensus that the housing market did not begin it's crash until 2008. Prior to that we were in what they called a housing boom. During the time to available homes for sale in Charlotte, NC hovered between 7,000 to 8,000 homes on average for sale during any given month. With the amount of people out looking it was not easy to find a good deal and think about it...if you did that chances are you would have lost out on the house. Well, I like to look at numbers and I crunch them all day everyday trying to get a home priced right to list and help a buyer get a good fair deal on the buying side. One number I have been tracking that seemed to me to defy what I heard on the news was the inventory levels of homes available in Charlotte, NC. During the peak of the housing crash we were hovering around 10,000 homes available for sale. that was an increase of over 30% from the best days.... Thus the collapse and with it the housing prices have dropped with it. Thus making it a buyer's market. However; a trend seems to be happening (mostly in the past year). Housing inventory has decreased dramatically. In the last twelve months through September 2011 the available housing inventory has dropped by 16.8% to an average of 7442 homes for sale.... This trend downwards is a positive sign for the housing market... there are pessimists that will say it is a true indication...But do numbers lie? Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker www.davedicecco.com