In this week's video John goes over the statistics of 2011's production and how they compare to 2010.  Also, he covers what these numbers mean for 2012 as well.

 

  

 

 Hey, guys.  John Jones here with an edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today, we’re going to talk about 2011 numbers.  First, we’re going to talk about the month of December.  The month of December, sales were up 27% over December of 2010, which is a very positive sign.  Pendings were up 11% over 2010.  Our inventory right now is as low as it’s been probably in the last three years.  It’s at 6.7 months’ supply, which is low compared to where we’ve been.  So all those are encouraging signs.

 

Our total numbers year to date were down slightly 5% from 2010.  Now that is the smallest drop we have had since this thing’s been turning south on us a little bit, probably since ’06 actually.  It’s the smallest number we’ve had.  Our average sales price dropped only 3.6% from last year.  This year, average home sales were around 159,000.  The year before, it was 165,000.  I say all that to say this, I do think we have hopefully hit the bottom.  There’s some encouraging signs in the marketplace.

 

One is our 4th quarter of this year was quite a bit better than the 4th quarter of last year.  Another thing is our unemployment numbers have dipped into the 7% range, and we haven’t seen 8 or 9 for a while, which is encouraging.  Another thing that I like to see is, if you’ve noticed in the papers and local media outlets, we do have some good job creation going on with Nissan adding jobs, having a third shift, Amazon coming on over on Joe B. Jackson, adding I think 1,200 jobs.  So those are all very encouraging signs to the market.

 

It’s going to be a slow, slow ride.  Another thing I heard, new construction’s actually picking up a little bit.  And I would say a lot of the reason that is is because of our inventory’s getting lower and people are needing a home and a good quality home.  I talked to Ole South Builders, the largest builder in our area, and they had 46 contracts in the month of December.  That was the biggest month they’ve had since in the ‘07 months. 

 

So all this stuff’s very encouraging.  I’m looking forward to this year.  If we can help you in any way at John Jones Real Estate, please give us a call at 867-3020.  And once again, I wish everybody a prosperous 2012.