S&P/Case Shiller released their monthly stats today.  If it’s the last Tuesday of the month, it must be time for stale news.  But instead of the usual,  “this is what happened months ago” in real estate trends, like the rest of the world wasn’t paying attention, it was nice to see this USA Today article address some of the inadequacies of Case Shiller’s methodology instead of just reporting the numbers.

Active listings at their lowest level in seven years; Growth continues in condo sales, contracts, and median price

Rockville, MD – (August 10, 2012) – The following analysis of the Washington, D.C. Metro Area housing market has been prepared by RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), and is based on July 2012 MRIS housing data.

Click here to view PDF version of this report

OVERVIEW

The shrinking inventory of homes for sale continues to play a major role in the Washington DC Metro Area housing market, though median price and sales growth has slowed.  The total inventory of active listings is the lowest of any month since August 2005.  The limited quantity of homes for sale is causing the median days-on-market to decrease (currently at 23 days, lowest July-level since 2005), and the sale-to-list price ratio to rise (currently at 96.3 percent, highest July-level since 2006). Sales and median price growth have slowed from the spring; however both are higher than this time last year.  The condo market continues to strengthen, posting the highest year-over-year increases of all residential property segments in sales, new contracts, and median sale price.