Boone County Missouri 1st Quarter 2008

Monday of this week I decided to analyze our housing figures for the first quarter of 08'. To my dismay I was a little shocked, disappointed, and very surprised at what the actual numbers told me about our great community. It seems at times we get so tied up in our day to day work and career that we sometimes forget about what is actually happening out there. This post is a little hard to type as there is so much negativity surrounding the national housing market and the Columbia market for that matter that the numbers did not help matters. I will point out both the negative aspects of the first quarter for Boone County Missouri and the positive factors; yes there were some positive attributes we can take from the first quarter. Please keep an open mind and don't kill the messenger as some of the figures are little disturbing.

NOT SO GOOD NEWS!

- January 08' was the worst first month in over 6 years; down 7.9% from 2007 numbers and 11 units.
- March 08' was the worst 3rd month in over 6 years; down 14.8% from 2007 numbers and 37 units.
- The first quarter as a whole was down 9.7% and 86 units and was the worst quarter since 2003 by volume and was the worst quarter in over 6 years by units with only 323 units sold as compared to 404 1st Q 07', 467 1st Q 06', 377 1st Q 05', 361 1st Q 04', and 378 1st Q 03'..
- Overall we are down over $12M compared to 2007 and we all know what a great year that was!
- New construction continues to take a beating with only 58 units sold through the first 3 months down from 97 units in 2007's first quarter.
- The first quarter for new construction was by far the worst over the last 6 years with only $12.9M in volume compared to $19M in 07', $28M in 06', $22.6M in 05', $17.7M in 04', and $17.3M in 03'.

Well hopefully you get my point about the first quarter. There are many other areas I could point out but these are the most pertinent and "eye popping" numbers. Now on to the good news!

THE GOOD NEWS!

- The list price to sold price seems to be very strong somewhere between 97-98%. This is great news for the homes that do sell!
- Construction has REALLY slowed down so as the inventory of homes on the market diminishes hopefully the demand and a "sense of urgency" will rise.
- Existing homes sales are actually "holding there own" as we exceeded 05, 04, and 03 in volume and were really close if not exceeding in units sold.
- We has real estate professionals and a community have continued to address the issues that put our fine city in this position to begin with.

The bottom line, at least based what I see, hear and analyze is that we simply do not have enough buyers given our current supply of homes; especially "higher-end" buyers (buyers that are looking at $300K+). It also seems the buyers we do have, again especially high-end have something to sell before they can buy. As always your comments are welcomed and I hope you enjoyed the post.

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