As you might imagine, I hear this question quite a bit. Yes, sales are down and without sub-prime financing there are fewer buyers out there, but overall the market is doing okay. The inventory is in a reasonable range, the number of homes under contract is strong and the total showing set greater than last year. The true measure on how the market is doing will be in the late summer to early fall. Traditionally this is when we see a second surge.
Below is a graph showing the gross number of showings in our market area. The orange bars show this years showing activity and the green bars show last years showing activity. You can see that usually by mid-July the showing start their decreasing. This year we are still increasing into June, I think a good sign of activity. 
Below is a graph that shows median sales price by zip code. There are four data points over the past 16 months or so. The data shows that there has been no appreciable gain nor loss in these areas and time frames. We are holding pretty steady overall.
Hi Neil, Curious about the the gross number of showings. How does IRES track showings given the variety of showing systems out there. We use centralized showings, for example but I am unaware if they report any information to IRES. Other offices use their own front desk staff to coordinate. How is IRES getting the info and do you think it’s accurate. Thanks.
Hi Osman,Thanks for your comment. I failed to add my usual disclosure on this issue. The showings shown are from only the offices that use the IRES showing module. This does not include all showings but given that the participation is relatively equal over time I think it can be used for comparative purposes across time periods. With the IRES showings module you can choose area, price range and date to check gross showings. I like to use it just to get a sense about how the overall market is looking and comparing that to the number of showings our office is setting. Thanks for calling me out on this one.Neil