Clovis Stats and Absorption rates... Number of homes sold in Clovis, NM recently.

Well its time to head back to school and back to work so I thought I would share 

what’s happening in the Real Estate market in Clovis NM this month. 

Things are pretty steady but its still a buyer’s market.

Some quick stats:

Active residential listings in Clovis as of 8/26/13: 363

Active res. listings in NE Clovis: 169

Homes that sold/closed in all of Clovis in the last month: 39

Homes that sold in NE Clovis in the last month: 25

Market Absorption Rate for all of Clovis: 9.3

That's the number of months it should take, based on current rates of sale, to sell all 363 residential listings IF no other properties came on the market in the meantime.

Market Absorption Rate for NE Clovis: 6.8

The conventional wisdom is that 3-4 months absorption rates indicate a sellers' market, 6 months indicates a fairly balanced market, and 9-12 months (or worse) is the sign of a true buyers' market.

So Clovis has a lot of homes on the market right now and it’s a great time to buy. Just to give you something to compare to back in late April of 2009 we had 275 homes on the market and they had just sold 55 homes the month before so a 5 month absorption rate.

Also if you are like me and wonder when a good time to buy or sell is, here are how many homes sold each month for the past 6 months in Clovis.

Jan –Feb  26 sold

Feb -Mar   42 sold

Mar -Apr   58 sold

Apr -May   57 sold

May-Jun   46 sold

Jun – July  45 sold

And to compare this year to last year…. 41 homes sold in the same July-August time frame that had 39 sold this year so not much change. 

Playing with the big frogs

Clovis, New Mexico is a little pond.

I know we are short of water out here on the high plains but as far as ponds go I call Clovis a little one.

We have 42,000 people in our town and we have 125 real estate agents. We actually have 19 brokerages in our MLS that serves Clovis and Portales, NM but only 9 of those companies have more than 3 people in them. So anyway, a little pond.

After living here for 14 years and being a REALTOR here for 6 years the first thing you realize is that there are a few big frogs in our pond. It is easy to be intimidated and figure that the foothold those big time realtors have is something that can never be overcome.

They have a broad customer base in the pond and have many loyal customers on that lilypad that use them time and again.

It seems that business comes to them. Their office is the coffee shop and they seem to succeed by just being. But on our journey to becoming a big frog there are lessons to be learned. I think the big frogs in our pond are going to be suprised at how quickly we grow.

As agents we have to change with our buyers. There are always going to be buyers in our pond that use the same agents their friends and family have used for twenty years but those hometown buyers are not in the majority any longer.

Many of our buyers today are linked to Cannon AFB and are being transferred here from some major-big ponds. You might even call them lakes. Not all of them are happy about the move but they are making the best of it and settling into pond life nicely.

These families are doing research on the town before they move here. They are looking up housing, shopping, things to do in New Mexico, and restaurants before they even get here. All agents are the same size to them. They don't know reputation or quality. They only know what they see or hear from friends and the agent that wins over these customers in the agent who always answers their email, calls people back, and goes out of their way to be helpful and answer the questions that buyers have -even before they ask.

Its not enough to be a big frog anymore. The little frogs that can text, twitter, and get their listings out on the web through office websites, trulia, front door, zillow, yahoo, google earth, msn... and all of those other online resources for real estate information...are going to be the frogs that get new loyal customers that make our pond grow.

New businesses and industries coming to our town are not going to have patience to deal with big frogs with big attitudes. Committees and name dropping have no meaning to them. They are going to expect more because they come from bigger ponds and what we think are big frogs are really, pretty small in their eyes.

The moral of the story?Im going to not be intimidated by the big frogs surrounding me in my own little pond. I am going to go ahead and make a statement that can be seen around the world and bring the world to my pond. Raise the bar of expectations for your associates, dont let being new (or old) be an excuse.... Raise the bar and remember little frogs can jump high too.