Sneak peek: May housing trends don't look so hot here in South FL

If you're a long-time reader of my blog, you know that there's a local real estate brokerage -- Illustrated Properties -- that puts up preliminary home sales figures for my part of the world (South FL) each month. They never match up exactly with the "official" Florida Association of Realtors figures. But they come out a bit earlier, and they get the general trends right. So I've found them to provide a nice "sneak peek."

Anyway, the May figures that were just posted look pretty awful. Here's the run down:

* Sales collapsed by 70.2% from a year earlier -- to 720 from 2,417 in May 2006.

* For-sale inventory bounced back from a dip in April. In fact, supply was up 12.9% year-over-year to a fresh cycle high of 24,852 (from 22,008 in 5/06)

* Median home prices dropped 5.2% YOY -- to $289,000 from $305,000 in May 2006. Average days on market also increased 58% to 144 from 91 a year ago.

Definitely no reason to jump for joy unless, of course, you're a buyer looking for a bargain. After all, you have more than 34 months worth of inventory to pick and choose from.