Learning From Real Estate Graphs

You can learn a lot about the housing market when you study real estate graphs. The prudent investor knows that no singular graph portrays a complete picture of the market, and that is why the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog regularly tracks and publishes over 120 of these "windows" into the market.

Today, we feature and review six of our most popular real estate graphs to find out the current view of the housing market in Tallahassee. Let me know if you are seeing any trend or activity that I fail to mention.

Pending Home Sales Graph

Recent activity in new contracts (pending home sales) shows that we have hit a plateau since mid-December in buyer activity. Hopefully, the bottom is behind us, but we have to be aware that the market was "stimulated" at this time last year (through April) with the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit.

Daily Closed Home Sales Graph

Tracking the daily closed home sales is the natural follow-up view after pending home sales. These are the successful closings that have occurred. In the graph above, the Tallahassee MLS reports that over the past year, 6.8 home sales are closing each day. This is roughly 70% of the "normal" rate that the MLS reported prior to the boom of the housing market.

Failed Home Sales

An important study that we do daily at Joe Manausa Real Estate is the measurement of success and failure for people who are trying to sell a home in Tallahassee. The real estate graph above shows that roughly 60% of the homes that were marketed for sale in Tallahassee over the past 365 days failed to sell. Home owners who decide to brave this market need to have an excellent internet marketing plan, and they need to know the market in order to find the price range that will get the home sold. This is no time for people who want to "test the market."

Single Family Detached Home Sales Graph

The bulk of the residential market in Tallahassee is single family detached homes. The graph above shows that the past four years (through February) have been the four worst years since 1991, but at least this year is the strongest of the past three.

Condominium And Townhouse Sales Graph

Condo and Townhouse sales are faring better than single family detached sales, but this is mostly due to the fact that this part of the market has been growing at a faster rate for the past twenty years. One can observe the strength that we are seeing thus far in 2011, but only in the resale side of the market. New condominium and townhouse sales have been as poor as we have seen since the early 1990s.

Year To Date Home Sales Graph

When we combine the two previous real estate graphs, we get a fair look at closed home sales in Tallahassee (year to date) for the past twenty one years. While it is disappointing that the recent four years are the lowest in the report, it is encouraging to see that we are off to the best start since 2008.

Want More Real Estate Graphs?

The best way to get a regular view of the real estate graphs for Tallahassee is to subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Newsletter. It is the best monthly source of charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market, and you can receive it for free by just being a subscriber.