Welcome everyone to the mid-year point, hard to believe we have already gotten here. I hope everyone is having a great summer and a very prosperous year so far. As we start to roll in to the second half of the year I like to take a look back to see how things have been coming along thus far. I will be comparing our first half of 2016 to several years from the past, please remember it will be an average of the first 6 months of each year for comparison. First I chose 2002, not only was it the first year I had gotten in to the business, but it also turned out to be the first year we really started to see the market start its' wild upturn. Next I chose 2006, this year had been regarded as our highest point of the market before things turned south. Thirdly 2009, for obvious reasons, this reported as the bottom of the "crash" timeline. Lastly I threw in 2011 only because it was the last time I served as your MLS Chairman.

Remember for reporting purposes I am using Fresno County, single-family homes, for the data. After the figures I will throw in my two cents on a couple of items.

At first glance you can see the huge uptick in dollar figures between 02' and 06', as the pricing rose, so did the inventory of listings along with time on the market. From 09' to 11' you can obviously see how we bumped along the "bottom" of the market as we experienced the so-called "crash." When I look at the 2011 (bottom) figures in comparison to 2002 (start) figures it does not appear to be so much of a "crash" as to more of a correction, we seemed to get back in-line. The "crash" was more reflective of all the bad-loans with inflated pricing and "ATM-ing" of the homes. From 2011 to our current time we can see that we are experiencing the return to an upward trending market. We still have not returned to the high point of 2006, but we seem to continue to head in that direction. The thing I would point out, in these two periods, would be the differences between AVG ACTIVE $ and AVG SOLD $, in 2006 it appears the gap is smaller than 2016. Does 2016's $100k gap indicate more of the return of the first-time buyer in the lower range, tighter lending restrictions/qualifications, and/or a slowdown of the mid to high end properties as prices seem to be accelerating a little quickly? Remember, this is just one guy's observations but I hope you find the data above useful in your own determinations.

Lastly, I need to touch on the subject of the "Withdrawn" status. We seem to have experienced an upturn in calls about agents marketing to sellers with a Withdrawn status. Please remember that Withdrawn and Cancelled are two different statuses. Although they are both off-market, Withdrawn does not mean that the listing broker's contract has expired or cancelled, the broker and the seller may just be working something out and it could return to the market within their agreed listing period. As always Thanks and Continued Success to you!