by Jim the Realtor | Oct 22, 2014 | Jim's Take on the Market, Sales and Price Check |
We seen the local NSDCC detached-home inventory hovering lately, instead of dropping off as expected. Two other signs, declining sales and SP:LP, make it look like buyers are gaining more control as we head into Halloween week.
The number of sales between August 15 and October 15 are down 18% from last year (and 25% from 2012), though there will be some late reporters:
| Year |
# of Sales |
Median SP |
Avg SP |
SP:LP Ratio |
Avg DOM |
| 2011 |
444 |
$822,500 |
$1,052,013 |
91% |
86 |
| 2012 |
618 |
$838,500 |
$1,116,907 |
95% |
76 |
| 2013 |
559 |
$994,300 |
$1,324,491 |
96% |
52 |
| 2014 |
461 |
$1,050,000 |
$1,418,498 |
94% |
50 |
Buyers should stay engaged, if for no other reason than the low rates. The dwindling new listings coming on the market should be ‘motivated’, and if you don’t mind weeding through the long-time listings there should be some deals in there too.
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 21, 2014 | Realtors Talking Shop, The Future |
The CEO of Move, Inc has commented on the News Corp purchase, and how Realtor.com can position themselves among Zillow/Trulia:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/31747-exclusive-move-ceo-steve-berkowitz-opens-up-about-news-corp-deal?page=1
Berkowitz told HousingWire that he views the shifting landscape of online real estate as a positive for Move.
“We see Zillow and Trulia coming together as an opportunity,” Berkowitz said.
“What you will have now is two vigorous competitors vying for the hearts of the consumers,” Berkowitz added. “The industry will benefit from these moves. This will help the consumer understand the role that the Realtor plays. The difference between our competitors and us is the humanity that the word Realtor brings.”
Berkowitz said that despite the increasing popularity and acceptance of online real estate sites as a part of the real estate transaction, he doesn’t anticipate the human element ever disappearing from the home buying process.
“Humanity is something that we don’t think will ever move out of the transaction,” Berkowitz said. “Zillow is a cold, calculated estimate. It’s just numbers going into a database. A home is more than that. The home is the center of its own social network.
“There are roughly five million transactions a year. Those are transformational for the consumer. The role the agent plays is much more than just facilitating the transaction. They’re offering that sense that the transaction is life-alteringly important.”
Berkowitz said that he views the timeline of the Zillow/Trulia deal as another positive for Move.
“The ambiguity and timing of the Zillow/Trulia deal is an opportunity for us,” Berkowitz said. “Our competitors promised cost savings in 2016. I can promise that you will see the impact of (the Move deal) in 2015.
“I think you’ll see us look for ways to get off the ground running. We’ll take this runway we have and focus on building our constituencies.”
Read the full article here – there are three pages:
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/31747-exclusive-move-ceo-steve-berkowitz-opens-up-about-news-corp-deal?page=1
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 21, 2014 | Market Conditions |
Owning a house is one of the few ways to try to get ahead. From the Atlantic:
Today, the top 0.1 percent of Americans—about 160,000 families, with net assets greater than $20 million—own 22 percent of household wealth, while the share of wealth held by the bottom 90 percent of Americans is no different than during their grandparents’ time.
What does this look like at the household level? Perhaps the most striking chart produced by the economists’ efforts to measure U.S. wealth is the one below, which shows that after a long march upward, and then a steep decline, the “average real wealth of bottom 90 percent families is no higher in 2012 than in 1986.” Meanwhile, the top 1 percent of wealthy families has almost completely recovered from the ill effects of the financial crisis.
Read the full article here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/the-bottom-90-percent-no-better-off-today-than-in-1986/381669/
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 20, 2014 | Inventory, Jim's Take on the Market |
The inventory count hasn’t dropped much. Last year the number of houses for sale declined 7.2% between September 2 and October 28 as sellers checked out for the holidays. This year it has only dropped 2.6%.
With more sellers waiting longer before canceling their listing for the holidays, it might make you think that they must be ‘motivated’, but it is the opposite – if their price was right, they would have sold by now.
The UNDER-$800,000 Market:
| Date |
NSDCC Active Listings |
Avg. LP/sf |
DOM |
Avg SF |
| November 25 |
95 |
$376/sf |
47 |
1,988sf |
| December 2 |
79 |
$371/sf |
50 |
2,047sf |
| December 9 |
72 |
$383/sf |
43 |
1,954sf |
| December 16 |
81 |
$378/sf |
42 |
1,948sf |
| December 23 |
77 |
$374/sf |
49 |
1,937sf |
| December 30 |
76 |
$373/sf |
51 |
1,950sf |
| January 6 |
74 |
$370/sf |
49 |
1,995sf |
| January 13 |
71 |
$381/sf |
44 |
1,921sf |
| January 20 |
72 |
$384/sf |
41 |
1,877sf |
| January 27 |
75 |
$399/sf |
40 |
1,891sf |
| February 3 |
78 |
$409/sf |
41 |
1,876sf |
| February 10 |
82 |
$395/sf |
38 |
1,927sf |
| February 17 |
85 |
$387/sf |
35 |
1,929sf |
| February 24 |
90 |
$383/sf |
37 |
2,008sf |
| March 3 |
82 |
$397/sf |
39 |
1,942sf |
| March 10 |
88 |
$377/sf |
37 |
2,008sf |
| March 17 |
89 |
$366/sf |
34 |
2,038sf |
| March 24 |
79 |
$369/sf |
34 |
2,031sf |
| March 31 |
78 |
$367/sf |
39 |
2,069sf |
| April 7 |
87 |
$373/sf |
32 |
2,054sf |
| April 14 |
97 |
$380/sf |
31 |
2,000sf |
| April 21 |
87 |
$377/sf |
32 |
2,062sf |
| April 28 |
107 |
$379/sf |
29 |
2,044sf |
| May 5 |
114 |
$376/sf |
27 |
2,046sf |
| May 12 |
108 |
$385/sf |
31 |
2,012sf |
| May 19 |
107 |
$385/sf |
0 |
0sf |
| May 26 |
105 |
$375/sf |
34 |
0sf |
| Jun 2 |
102 |
$376/sf |
36 |
0sf |
| Jun 9 |
102 |
$377/sf |
37 |
0sf |
| Jun 16 |
104 |
$369/sf |
35 |
0sf |
| Jun 23 |
111 |
$380/sf |
34 |
0sf |
| Jun 30 |
119 |
$376/sf |
36 |
0sf |
| Jul 7 |
122 |
$387/sf |
36 |
0sf |
| Jul 14 |
127 |
$388/sf |
34 |
0sf |
| Jul 21 |
135 |
$381/sf |
36 |
0sf |
| Jul 28 |
144 |
$382/sf |
37 |
0sf |
| Aug 4 |
148 |
$379/sf |
39 |
0sf |
| Aug 11 |
135 |
$375/sf |
42 |
0sf |
| Aug 25 |
135 |
$374/sf |
43 |
0sf |
| Sep 1 |
126 |
$377/sf |
46 |
0sf |
| Sep 8 |
130 |
$375/sf |
46 |
0sf |
| Sep 15 |
134 |
$369/sf |
45 |
0sf |
| Sep 22 |
127 |
$376/sf |
49 |
0sf |
| Sep 29 |
132 |
$378/sf |
48 |
0sf |
| Oct 6 |
130 |
$367/sf |
48 |
0sf |
| Oct 13 |
131 |
$378/sf |
44 |
0sf |
| Oct 20 |
130 |
$385/sf |
45 |
0sf |
(more…)
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 19, 2014 | Market Buzz, Market Conditions, The Future, This Is America |
From our friend Karen at BloombergBusinessweek:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-15/chinese-home-buying-binge-transforms-california-suburb-arcadia
“Oh, hey! How ya’ doin’?” Raleigh Ornelas hollers, leaning out the window of his spotless white pickup truck. He’s recognized the man across the street, a developer standing in front of a Tuscan-style mansion under construction. “Where have you been hiding at? I call you, you don’t call me.”
Ornelas is an informal broker in Arcadia, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. He’s been keeping an eye out for the builder, an Asian man with a slight comb-over who goes by Mark. Ornelas has found two older homeowners who’ve finally agreed to sell their properties, and he knows that Mark, like all developers here, needs land on which to build mansions for an influx of rich clients from mainland China.
Ornelas rattles off addresses on a nearby street. “Three-eleven, that guy, he’s wack,” he says, shaking his head. “He wants 2.8.” He means million dollars. “And then 354, they want $2 million.”
The lot is 17,000 square feet. “Seventeen for 2 mil?” Mark asks, incredulous.
“I know,” Ornelas says. “They’re going crazy.”
A year ago the property would have gone for $1.3 million, but Arcadia is booming. Residents have become used to postcards offering immediate, all-cash deals for their property and watching as 8,000-square-foot homes go up next door to their modest split levels. For buyers from mainland China, Arcadia offers excellent schools, large lots with lenient building codes, and a place to park their money beyond the reach of the Chinese government.
The city, population 57,600, projects that about 150 older homes—53 percent more than normal—will be torn down this year and replaced with mansions. The deals happen fast and are rarely listed publicly. Often, the first indication that a megahouse is coming next door is when the lawn turns brown. That means the neighbor has stopped watering and green construction netting is about to go up.
This flood of money, arriving from China despite strict currency controls, has helped the city build a $20 million high school performing arts center and the local Mercedes dealership expand. “Thank God for them coming over here,” says Peggy Fong Chen, a broker in Arcadia for many years. “They saved our recession.” The new residents are from China’s rising millionaire class—entrepreneurs who’ve made fortunes building railroads in Tibet, converting bioenergy in Beijing, and developing real estate in Chongqing. One co-owner of a $6.5 million house is a 19-year-old college student, the daughter of the chief executive of a company the state controls.
Read full story here:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-15/chinese-home-buying-binge-transforms-california-suburb-arcadia
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 18, 2014 | Market Conditions |
Folks had something to say about Washington D.C. being the most expensive – Susie wanted to make sure Honolulu was considered, and so did the WSJ.com:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/14/no-washington-dc-is-not-more-expensive-than-new-york-city/
As it happens, the Department of Commerce directly measures price levels for different regions. These price levels are the average prices paid by consumers for the things they consume. That’s probably what most people mean when they say a place is expensive.
These data show that the most expensive region in the U.S. is Honolulu, followed by New York. The D.C. area is seventh.
The Council for Community and Economic Research produces an index measuring the cost of housing, utilities, grocery items, transportation, health care and goods and services. This is pretty close to the concept people are curious about when they want to know how expensive different cities are. It scores Manhattan as 117% more expensive than most cities (more than double) and Brooklyn 67% more expensive. D.C. is only 38% more expensive, according to their rankings.
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 17, 2014 | Jim's Take on the Market, The Future
Zillow is having a two-day bash in Las Vegas for its Premier Agents, and 1,000 of the 60,000 PAs are attending. It will take a miracle for realtor.com to get back in the game now – look at how Zillow is pulling away:
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/zillow-hosts-first-national-conference-important-day-zillow-history/
Zillow Chief Marketing Officer Amy Bohutinsky reiterated Zillow’s commitment to mass-market advertising, particularly TV advertising, stating that they’re on track to spend $75 million this year to build an “enduring brand that resonates with consumers, their children and their grandchildren for years to come.”
Before their TV campaign started 18 months ago, Bohutinsky said that one-third of visits to a real estate website started with Zillow. Today, that number is 50 percent, largely as a result of their TV exposure.
Is News Corp and realtor.com going to spend $100,000,000 per year on TV advertising to get back in the fight? If so, they better start spending it today!
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 16, 2014 | Interesting Houses |
This 6 br/6 ba, 9,283sf house sold for full price a year ago – $4,900,000:
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 16, 2014 | Forecasts |
C.A.R. released their 2015 forecast:
http://www.car.org/newsstand/newsreleases/2014releases/859066?view=Standard
The California median home price is forecast to increase 5.2 percent to $478,700 in 2015, following a projected 11.8 percent increase in 2014 to $455,000. This is the slowest rate of price appreciation in four years.
“With the U.S. economy expected to grow more robustly than it has in the past five years and housing inventory continuing to improve, California housing sales and prices will see a modest upward trend in 2015,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “While the Fed will likely end its quantitative easing program by the end of this year, it has had minimal impact on interest rates, which should only inch up slightly and remain low throughout 2015. This should help moderate the decline in housing affordability we saw occur over the past two years.”
“Additionally, the state will continue to see a bifurcated market, with the San Francisco Bay Area outperforming other regions, thanks to a more vigorous job market and tighter housing supply.”
They are projecting an 8.2% decline in sales this year – and they think sales AND prices will rise next year in spite of their expectations of higher rates and less affordability?
Their own graph shows pendings on a YoY downward trend for two years:
An improving economy next year – if it improves – probably won’t change the momentum of flatline pricing we have experienced over the last few months. The only thing that could directly and positively impact sales and pricing will be mortgage rates in the 3s – hope they stick!
by Jim the Realtor | Oct 15, 2014 | Wednesday Rock Blogging
James Harman and Those Dangerous Gentlemen were red hot in the early 1980s when Hollywood Fats and Kid Ramos were playing guitar. Unfortunately, Fats died of a heroin overdose in 1986, but the band carries on! (he starts around the 1:50-min. mark):
