January 2015 Pinellas Residential Sale and Inventory Report

January is customarily the lowest sale month of the year and one of the highest levels of inventory. We saw a slowing of sales last year until September when sales took off again and ended with December being the highest month of sales for any month since 2006!

Last month continued the trend with the strongest January sales since 2006 and not just by a little. The increase over last January was nearly 15% and it was over 50% higher than January in 2012!

Because of this the inventory level for January was the lowest for any January since the peak of the market in 2005-2006.

Both of these factors are resulting in a continuation of price increases and competition from buyers for what is available. If this continues then we should start to see more sellers putting their properties on the market which will help a little with the inventory shortage but I don’t see that going back to a more normal level for at least another year. So buyers will need to get the most skilled agent to help them if they want to make a purchase before price (and most likely interest rates) go much higher.

Here are the graphs so you can see what I’m talking about (clicking on either graph will show it full-sized):

Information for charts above was taken from PRO/Suncoast MLS from Jan 2007 thru May 2011 & from the MFRMLS for May 2011 thru Jan 2015. This information may or may not include all listed expired, withdrawn, pending or sold properties of one or more members of the My Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service.