End-of-June recording stats

Historically, June 30 has always been one of the busiest days of the year at the registry of deeds. I believe that two factors contributed to that: for some businesses and for state and municipal governments, it is the end of the fiscal year and some funds must be spent during the FY; the second factor is that many "spring sales" are consummated on that date. Once the snow melts, people start aggressively shopping for homes and, given the lead time needed for a typical sale, the end of June is about when a closing would take place for an April or May purchase and sale agreement. Related to that is the end of school. Families with children might tend to defer moving into a new house might wait until school is out to physically move to a new home or new community.

But as I said, this is the case historically because it certainly has not been the case in the past few years since the real estate bubble burst and it doesn't seem like it will be the case this year. Our recordings-to-date for June when compared to the same period last year, paint a bleak picture. From June 1 thru June 27 of 2011, 373 deeds were recorded while at the same time in 2010, there were 499. That's a drop of 25%. The same holds true for mortgages. They went from 900 in June 2010 to 689 in June 2011, a drop of 23%. We hope that things pick up this week, but there is unfortunately no indication right now of that happening by the end of the week.