….I love our monthly market report for our region. They do such a valiant effort (As do I, mostly) of putting a good shine on.

This month they touted that the numbers were up from February to March! Big jump!…Until you look a bit closer and see that the numbers are down, year over year by 40%. Ouch.

While our closed sales YTD are tracking last years, you can see another potential for slowdown in the pending numbers, and the inventory numbers. It evolves by the day, and one good sunny day could have a big impact.

This should drop the inventory (It has) and stiffen the market (it has…kind of) but this month we are seeing quite the flood of properties on the market, so my inventory crash was quite short lived…..It turns out, you can’t score if you don’t play, so look for lots of people to have a ticket in that game, but listing homes that are essentially unsellable due to indebtedness. Our trends are very choppy, and clearly divided into the two markets, Those that have to, and those than can. We are running about the same as the national markets, with 40% of our transactions being defined as “short.”

Last month, I incorrectly identified that the market has two “ends” higher, and lower, and that the higher was made up of those that can…I want to clarify that there are examples of both types all over the market price ranges, and that this is leading to a really choppy presentation of properties in the market…..and the dreaded resets.

…And speaking of resets, just as the demand firms up, the appraisals from a bunch of foreclosures are hitting valuations. We are having a HECK of a time making negotiated value. Seems a lot more people want to live here than the appraisers think….

So, we continue bouncing along the bottom. We are having a big push of sales get in the pipe right now, so that seems positive, but the big news will be how that carries into the Summer, and especially, the Fall.

There are a couple of great updates on the blog over at Copperwest, too. In the index of the blog are a couple of links to pages that are “mini-searches” of sub markets in the gorge. They have the 10 newest properties, AND the ten largest price reductions. Kinda cool.

Next month, apparently, we are going to launch a mobile app too…..ooh pretty.

See you then. And have a great Spring, such as it were……