Posts Tagged ‘sales’

The statistics released by the Real Estate Institute last week for the month of December showed a slightly brighter result than expected when it came to sales volumes. A total of 4,302 properties were sold in December, up slightly on the November figure of 4,279. Normally we expect to see a smaller volume in December given the reduced business days in the month. Historically December usually represents around 75% to 80% of the sales of November.

Having made that comment the fact is that the year of 2008 goes down as the lowest selling year for the real estate industry over the past 16 years. A total of just 56,128 properties were sold – a drop of 39% as compared to 2007; and 53% down on the peak year of 2003 when 120,108 properties were sold. In terms of comparable monthly sales the chart below ably demonstrates the extent of the property sales collapse, tracking the sales of the past 5 years.

The extent of the decline in the sales of property can also be seen from the chart below which tracks the 12 month moving average volume of sales since 1993. The  volume shown by the red line (right hand axis) shows a peak in the 12 months leading up to April 2004 at 121,777, from there the sales began to fall although they did stage a rally in the early part of 2007 and peaked again in April 2007 at 106,243 before descending to the current level of 56,128.

The green line tracks the value of all transacted sales over the same period since 1992 (left hand axis). The very clear components of this line are the periods of major growth and decline. From the period up to November 2000 through to the initial peak in April 2004 the moving annual total value of transactions grew by 150% from $13.3 billion to $33.3 billion. The market then took a breather for a few months before ascending to the heights of $41.1 billion achieved in year to June of 2007. In total that run lasted 79 months (over 6 years).

Since that peak the value of the market in terms of transactions on an annualised basis has fallen by more than 40% in just 18 months to the current level where the total value of transactions in the 12 months to December 2008 was just $23.2 billion.