Expired listings

On the first day of every month, there's always a spike in the number of listing contracts that expire. We've been keeping track of this statistic as one of our housing market breadth indicators. As our local housing market deteriorated, the number of expired listings on the 1st day of the month rose from just 42 units on 9/1/2005 to the record high of 191 units on 5/1/2006. Yesterday, 6/1/2006, this number dropped to 150 units. This is a short-term positive sign that's in sync with our COE Index, which was posted on Wednesday, 5/31/2006.