February Update

It is April 1. April Fools Day. It is a lovely Spring day and I wonder: given the never-ending winter we've had, is this an April Fools joke on a cosmic scale? Is it going to snow again tonight? Or is spring finally here?

(For the record, let me remind everyone: to date this year, we have had no nice 60 degree days. Zero. Nada. As I write this, there are still piles of snow in the driveways I can see, and my yard is still covered with snow from last night. It still feels like we've been in winter forever. It's been snowy for so long that a daily hit of Prozac in my Starbucks coffee is starting to look like a good idea.)

This talk about the weather isn't completely off the subject. Around the office, it is part of an ongoing conversation about whether or not the real estate market in Spokane is being impacted by the neverending winter. We wonder if, when it finally does warm up, will buyers finally emerge from the sidelines and buy, kicking the market into gear, or are the buyers already in gear, and this is as good as it is going to get? (Oh, please God, say that isn't so.) It certainly feels like the weather is holding things back.

Which begs the question, what is the market doing? To which the answer is: about the same.

The Spokane Association of Realtors tracks activity by month, and compares it to the same month one year ago and two years ago. We just got the numbers from February.

This February, SAR tallied 293 closed sales. That compares with 407 the Feb before and 461 in 2006. There were 2,778 active listings this Feb, compared with 2,233 last year and 1,581 the year before that. Two years ago, sales equaled about 29% of listings; this year it was about 10%. Yikes!

Fewer buyers looking at more inventory. A lot more inventory. And that has been the pattern for about a year. Average prices are hovering about where they were a year ago.

What we don't know is whether or not there are fewer people looking - or just fewer making offers that get accepted. Those of us in real estate are fervently hoping it is the latter, and that with enough Prozac or sunshine people will start buying.

I'll let you know. For now, I'm happy just to bask in the sunshine and hope the nice weather is not an April Fools joke.

Prozac will do that to you.