We’ve finally got a look at the revised December sales numbers, and with that was can finally put a fork in 2010 and take a look at the stats.
The updated number for December came in at 848, up from the initial announcement of 784. About an 8% adjustment comes in right around what it usually does. We can see from the seasonality curve that put us right about where we should be given the total sales on the year. A little late year volatility after trending one standard deviation below the predicted curve for most of the 2nd half until an pretty big aberration in November.
Here is how this December stacked up against December’s past. We came in at the low end, just nosing out 2002 to come in with the 4th lowest tally since Y2K, but fairly close to the normal range for the month. Nothing like 2006 or 2008, which are pretty clear outliers (for it’s time, 2000 was actually the highest on record up to that point).
Absorption rate remains extremely high… though not 2007/2008 high. I lot higher than a year ago, but that’s no surprise. That ’08 December mark of 10.4 is actually the highest on record for Edmonton, and the Dec ’07 mark is the 4th highest, just for some perspective.
Finally a quick look at the annual sales. Spin it however you like, but 2010 had the lowest sales total since 2003… and this was even after an uber-hot late-winter/early-spring. Without that we very likely would have came in with the lowest total since 2000.
It’ll be interesting to follow into 2011. Obviously the lay of the land right now is pretty dismal, but with the recently announced changes in lending rules we could very well see another wave of dumb money this winter. Not sure how much of that can still be laying around out there, but I’ve been surprised before, and as Einstein said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
