Break away: Where is the super bowl notch down?

On the west coast I'm seeing a bizare increase in inventory. Normally, we have a notch down everywhere around the super bowl weekend. Instead I'm seeing a huge leap up in the LA beach cities. I'm waiting for east coast data (they tend to have a *major* update at ~6pm east coast time that will really sway the inventory). Overall nationally, it was a normal pattern. But look at this chart! Please see my previous article for more inventory graphs.



Yes, that's a vertical line in the beach areas of the south bay of LA! Last year there was a similar uptick of much smaller scale in mid-March, but otherwise we have nothing to compare to.

Note: We shouldn't care about week to week inventory changes. Normally its too minor to matter. In some areas, its quite different this year. Its the highest spike I've seen. Note: West coast data tends to be real time and east coast tends to batch daily. So it will be 24 hours until I can comment on many parts of the nation. But nationally, we aren't seeing a 'healthy sales start' to the spring selling season.

Edit: I should note that there were three patterns to when minimum inventory was seen last year.
1. Minimum inventory the Thursday after Superbowl (2/8/2007)
2. Minimum inventory Start of March (3/7/2007)
3. Break away (yes, some areas did in 2007)


Got popcorn?
Neil