Listings and Contracts - Insights to the Market

Last week, I discussed the rising inventory for condos and compared that to the steadier, single family housing inventory. This week, I’m diving into the weeds some more and looking at condo listings and contracts.

The typical time from contract to close is usually about 4 weeks. By looking at the number of contracts, we can get a good idea of how many sold units we will have. There are always a few contracts that fall out, but the vast majority go to closing.

I took the MLS data for condo listings and condo contracts since the beginning of the year and subtotaled them by the week. See the chart below with listings represented by the orange line and contracts by the blue line.

A few things stuck out for me.

• The number of listings and the number of contracts by week tracked pretty closely for the first six months of the year. Then, new listings grew at a much faster rate.
• The number of new contracts each week has remained somewhat steady. There hasn’t been a drop off in demand.

What does this mean?

For buyers, this is a welcome relief as there are more condos to choose from and there is a little less pressure. The number of bidding wars is dropping off. Not gone completely as the well priced and/or unique places will still go quickly.

For sellers, this is still a good market for sellers, but not as strong as in June and July. Set your expectations right and be willing to negotiate a little.