As the winter sets in and the market reacts to more bad news about the real estate market and the "credit crunch" I wonder what could possibly be good in the world of real estate.  Then I saw our weekly activity! 

Pending sales dropped, as did new listings, and the total inventory droped too.  Now the fact that pending sales were down isn't "good news" but is completely expected at this point in the year.  Buyer activity is low right now because most of us are too busy returning gifts, and just keeping warm to think about buying homes.

However, the fact that new listings were also down was very welcome news, and better yet, the total number of homes offered for sale today is down 4.2% from 28,062 homes in Nov., to 26,865 in Dec.*

The market is currently flooded with inventory, and buyers are skimming the best ones off the top each week.  So, as the number of homes offered for sale drops, the supply demand balance will be restored and things will begin to feel "normal" again.

As long as we don't see a lot of these homes coming back on the market in Feb. and the total number of listing continues to go down we'll see the market improving!

* these stats and figures are for the 13 county metro area