Pending Sales Soar Higher in Vancouver WA and Clark County WA for February 2012

Following a strong surge of pending home sales in January, February produced an even higher number of pending sales: 514 (vs: 357 in Feb 2011; and 428 in Jan 2012)! Closed Vancouver WA homes for sale and Clark County again performed modestly at 315 units however, this number is more of a lagging indicator of the typically slower activity at the end of the prior year. .

With 57% of the Closed sales in the Distressed Property Categories (Short Sale Homes and Bank Owned Homes) for February, the average sales price along with the 3-month rolling average sales price fell to a new low. While the damaged and distressed properties do seem to be a drag on local housing prices, we are experiencing multiple offer situations for the homes in very good condition as the available inventory of resale homes has shrunken considerably. With resale inventory at "Seller's Market" levels, there is good reason to believe home sales prices should firm up very soon.

The Chart Below (prepared by John Slocum, our resident statistician) is based on home sales recorded in the Vancouver MLS system (RMLS), excluding sales of mobile home; and shows the purchase activity since 2009; charting the 3 month rolling average number of sales, and the 12 month rolling average. This "smoothing" of the data helps illiustrate the short-term and longer term trends in Clark Conuty's real estate market.

This next chart below shows the Average home sales price trends (3 month and 12 month) for the same time period. As the chart shows, average sales prices have slid again with such a high mix of distressed properties in the total number of sales.

Comparing the 3-month moving average for sales price; we have $199,830 for February 2012 vs. $225,879 for February 2011; a net decrease of $26,049 or -11.5%.

Finally, the Level of Available Resale Inventory is an important indicator of market health; and we show 4.8 (a decrease) months Clark County-wide; and 4.3 (a decrease) months for the sum of Vancouver zip codes -- a number that is substantially lower than last year. We are seeing a seasonal increase of listings in February and March thus, it remains to be seen if the low inventory levels will remain much longer.

Charts: For the enthusiasts that like to examine charts, we have the sales results for the Resold Inventory (excludes new homes) by Community that you may find helpful:

Clark County WA Home Sales Results and Charts
Battle Ground WA Home Sales Results and Charts
Brush Prairie & Hockinson Home Sales Results and Charts
Camas WA Home Sales Results and Charts
La Center WA Home Sales Results and Charts
Ridgefield WA Home Sales Results and Charts
Vancouver WA Home Sales Results and Charts
Washougal WA Home Sales Results and Charts

Please let us know if you have any specific questions or comments!

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Disclaimer: as with any real estate statistics, we do our best to provide the best representation at the time the data was acquired. We deem the data and reports reliable but not guaranteed.