Balance upThe weekly MAAR activity report came out and there appears to be a bit of good news in the single family and multi-family home markets.

New listings of single family homes continued to drop, being 23 percent behind the same week in 2007. Meanwhile, pending sales increased 4.9 percent over last year; a number that represents the biggest year-over-year increase in 117 weeks (29.25 months!) This is only the third increase in that time. The second happened just two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the multi-family market continued along at a healthy clip. Sales of 2-4 unit properties were up 182.4 percent over the same week last year. Of these sales, 84 percent were for properties in a short sale or foreclosure situation.

New listings in the multi-family category decreased by 22.2 percent, meaning, for now anyway, supply has begun to decrease.

It will be interesting to see whether Freddie Mac’s August lending restrictions impact this market.

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