Friday, August 22. 2008
The folks at IAC (NASDAQ:IACI) broke into five different companies this week with the real estate and mortgage related assets now under the umbrella of a company called Tree.com (NASDAQ:TREE) Is escaping from the conglomerate goo going to help this group prosper? Tree ostensibly has a bunch of internet properties but from where I sit, only two are viable, ahem, branches- LendingTree.com and RealEstate.com.
The former is the web 1.0 mortgage holdover with traffic now supported by TV ads. The latter a straightforward real estate broker with simply the best domain name in the business. The rest of the properties are a collection of, shall I say, unimpressive lending and home-search affiliate web sites.
Needless to say, being a volume mortgage player is a scary business right now. Maybe the secondary markets recover enough to support this model on-going, maybe, um, not. According to their S-1, Tree has limited exposure to the subprime and Alt-A mess. Surprising that they escaped that temptation that hit the etrades, etc. so hard. Good for them.
What does Tree have to offer? As a web site, RealEstate.com is decent enough to get a solid stream of leads by virtue of being many home searchers' very first stop on the internet. (Evidenced by the steady 800k visitors/month). The domain name is a built-in low-cost marketing channel for a brokerage. A really nice asset for sales and to recruit agents (the real business of brokerages). Is it enough? The site risks getting walloped by innovation happening in the intensely competitive home search space. (see Trulia, Estately, Redfin, Roost, Zillow, heck even Realtor.com is lumbering more quickly these days.) The big question for the future of this unit is whether the technology costs of keeping competitive continue to remain cheaper than traditional marketing channels for brokers.
Of Tree's lesser brands, I identify with the business proposition of Improvenet - home contractors and service guys need a better way to be found). But the competition with craigslist has to be brutal. And Angie's List is starting to run away with the premium end of the contractor referral market.
The bottom line for TREE is this: in the internet real estate space, it's a tough time to be an incumbent and a great time to be an innovator. Tree, despite the new name, is the incumbent.
[disclosure: we have realtor clients in the RealEstate.com brokerage and like all our clients we sincerely hope they kick ass.]
Thursday, August 21. 2008
We love it when our clients get good blog fodder from our data. We need to be more diligent about showing the link love to 'em. Surfing around with a little insomnia tonight I found a whole set from just the last day or two. Check out these wonderful realtors with great, data-rich blogs:
Wilkas Group in San Mateo
Irina Natchaev dives into the San Gabriel market
Ryan Hartman in Philadelphia (Welcome aboard Ryan!)
Marian Bennett in Half Moon Bay
Here's a special hint: if you're a home buyer or seller looking for data in any of these markets, you can actually subscribe to the detailed local reports from us. But why would you? These marvelous pros will give you the reports for free! How cool is that?!
Monday, August 18. 2008
 It's been over a year since we last hosted the Carnival of Real Estate (my how the landscape has changed). We like hosting because it gives us an opportunity to find new voices and highlight the good work going on out there in the blogosphere. Plus, this time around we have a ready-made clever metaphor to use in highlighting the best blogging submissions to the carnival. Not content with a simple gold-silver-bronze metaphor, we thought we'd prowl around the margins of the Olympics to highlight the things that make these games unique. Enjoy. Let's kick things off with the opening ceremonies The Games are an international affairAs the week progresses we get to see the competitors up close Finally, no Olympics is complete without The heartfelt story of overcoming personal adversity to rise to glory. So there you have it folks. I've been mildly ambivalent about these games, but there's always entertainment to be found when dig a little. Hopefully you'll find the same with this week's carnival. Next week hosted at ValleyMarket.com (Alaska!)
Tuesday, August 5. 2008
Our latest National Housing Market Report is out. This one examines data through end of July 2008. You can download the PDF here.
Here's the press release: Real Estate Report: National Housing Prices Down by 0.8% in July
Report measures current real estate data in major markets around the country. Data shows Las Vegas continuing to lead as the weakest US housing market with real estate prices down another 4% in July. Current real estate data shows some summertime price stability in Midwestern markets Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA August 5, 2008 - The Altos 10-City Composite Price Index showed a decline in asking prices of 0.8% in July and 1.3% for the past three months. Prices of properties listed for sale fell in 13 of 26 major markets according to the Real-Time Real Estate Report, published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time real estate data, and market analysis consultancy Real IQ.
Asking prices fell at the fastest rate in Las Vegas - down 4.0% during July - and 7.5% over the most recent three-month period for an annualized rate of 30%. Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in Detroit - up 4.8% in July - followed by Cleveland where prices were up 2.7%. Prices were also up slightly in the Midwestern markets of Indianapolis and Minneapolis.
"While prices continue to fall in coastal and Western markets, prices appear to have stabilized in Midwestern markets that were previously declining," said Michael Simonsen, CEO and co-founder of Altos Research. "The real test will come in the fall when markets typically experience a seasonal slowdown which will be exacerbated by high job losses and foreclosures."
Asking prices fell at the fastest rate in Las Vegas - down 4.0% during July - and 7.5% over the most recent three-month period for an annualized rate of 30%. Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in Detroit - up 4.8% in July - followed by Cleveland where prices were up 2.7%. Prices were also up slightly in the Midwestern markets of Indianapolis and Minneapolis.
Listed property inventories declined with the 10-City Composite markets showing a decrease of 2.0% in July. Inventory rose in just 6 of 26 markets with the biggest decreases occurring in Detroit and Cleveland.
"Broadly declining inventory is a positive sign in the near-term, particularly for the Midwestern markets which all showed inventory declines," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ.
For the Altos 10-City Composite, the average days on market was 111, a slight increase from 109 in June. Thirteen of 26 markets had an average days-on-market of 100 or more. By far, the market with the slowest rate of inventory turnover was Miami at an average of 156 days-on-market, nearly a full month more than the next slowest market - Tampa. Austin led all markets with the fastest rate of inventory turnover at an average of 78 days-on-market.
Data in the Real-Time Housing Market Report is based on analysis of over one million properties currently listed for sale in 31 metropolitan markets across the country. The report is the most timely source of housing market data on current market activity.
The report examines housing pricing, inventory levels and market conditions in 31 major U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, DC. The Real-Time Real Estate Report is released every month.
Friday, August 1. 2008
Altos scores the big spread in BusinessWeek today!  I was really happy to fulfill this request. The folks at BW wanted a national real estate slide show that wasn't just yet another chronicle of the market meltdown. They wanted to see where things were good too. Grown weary of all-bad-California-all-the-time, they also asked to take a look at 20 or so major metros around the country. So we suggested that we pick a nice sampling of metros, and then find the best and worst performing zip codes in each (in terms of median home price over the last year.) And you know what? We found some very interesting trends. Aside from poor Las Vegas, we are able to find some healthy pricing trends in every metro we sampled. What do the up markets have in common? Well, almost without exception, they're the nice parts of town. The biggest down zip codes? Again almost without exception, the hardest hit markets are the cheapest parts of town. The phenomenon is working like this: There are a few folks who are well financed, and they for the first time in years, get to buy in the best neighborhoods without a ton of competition. Mortgages are still historically cheap, if in fact you can get one. While at the low end, no one can get financing, and of course those with the craziest mortgages are now selling or foreclosing. The mayhem starts at the bottom. Check out the full article. Fascinating reading.
Wow. Do you read AgentGenius? If you're in the real estate biz, you should. Heck, if you use the interwebs in your business at all, you should. They've pulled together a group of stellar writers. I already liked the work going on over there and then they go produce a conference roundup like this. Rock on.
Monday, July 28. 2008
While attending the Inman Conference at the Palace Hotel last week, I had a chance to demo AltosXplorer for Altos customer Lenore Wilkas. I was trying to show Lenore some of the new stats that are available, in particular Year-over-Year Percent Price Change. While trying to describe what the stat means (it wasn't obvious to either of us, honestly) Lenore remarked that "It would be really cool if I could just do a comparison chart of price this year vs. last year instead of trying to figure out what these percentages mean.".
Of course, she was right. The human brain is much better at spatial reasoning than it is at numerical reasoning, after all. Why make our customers do the mental arithmetic when a visual representation would be so much more effective. So after a weekend of intense hacking, I am happy to announce that the feature has been added!
Access to this new feature is not available in the free version (sorry - I have a mortgage to pay too, after all) of AltosXplorer, but for all of our subscribers the feature will be visible the next time you login. To use the feature, start by adding one location to your chart. Then click on the'Options' tab where you will see two sets of options just below 'Chart Timespan' - 'Date Range' and 'Comparison Date Range Overlay':
The 'Date Range' option allows you to set the end date for your chart. Normally, all AltosCharts display the latest available data. If you instead wanted to view the price chart covering the 2007 calendar year, you would select the last date in 2007 using the date selector (2007-12-28). Because you selected '1 year' for Chart Timespan, this means your chart will cover one year of data ending on December 28th, 2007.
Next, select the comparison date range. This setting determines how far back to go for the comparison. To compare one year against another, use 'Previous Year'. Then just click on the 'Chart' tab to see the results.
Example: Sunnyvale, 94086 - 2007 prices vs. 2006 prices:
The good news (for me at least) is that the market in my ZIP code seems to have recovered towards the end of 2007. Thanks to Lenore for the suggestion, and have fun testing it out. Just keep in mind that our historical data does not go much further back than about 3 years - so don't expect to be able to compare 1970 market prices to today's values.
Monday, July 21. 2008
Over the past couple of years, we've built our client base with realtors and investors, buyers and sellers, with appraisers and traders, with planners and researchers. During that time, our products for those folks have taken the form of either detailed analytical reports or simply raw data. Either we do all the analytical work, or you do it. More and more though, we found that there is a big group of people who need an easy way to solve more unique problems than we can possibly address in our pre-designed local reports, but these folks have neither the time nor the experience to sift through the mountains of real estate data on their own. We realized we needed a product that lets our clients easily query the vast Altos Research database to get the specific answers they need, and use the output in any number of different ways. Thus AltosXplorer was born. AltosXplorer is for you if you've ever looked at our report products and said, "I don't need just one city, I need to be able to investigate any stat for any zip in the whole area (region, state, country)." Think about the investor who has opportunities that may come up anywhere in Florida, and wants to quickly compare two markets when a new deal arrives. Or consider an appraiser who works all over Chicagoland. Any given day he needs to illustrate just a couple of key measures in a neighborhood to augment the rest of the data in his report. For our Realtor clients, AltosXplorer is a lot of fun too. Previously, in order to use our AltosCharts you needed to formulate a long URL to get the right chart. With AltosXplorer, you build the chart you want with just a few clicks and then click, copy and paste! (See Kris Berg's first foray for the perfect example of how AltosXplorer was intended for our Pro clients.) Can you tell we're giddy around here? I could go on and on but I'll wrap in a single (albeit multi-claused) sentence: AltosXplorer is a rich internet application that enables you to do your own analysis, create your own trend AltosCharts, on our full database, and export the data to your own analysis in just a few clicks. Learn more here. Try it out here. Enjoy.
Thursday, July 17. 2008
I twittered this yesterday, but since it's possibly my favorite press coverage my company has received, I figured I blog it today too.  Apparently Hulk Hogan is getting a divorce. He needs, of course, to understand what's happening in the housing market, especially in Las Vegas where he and his soon-to-be-ex have a condo. Where does a pro-wrestler-turned-reality-tv-star turn for the best insights? Why "prominent research firm, Altos Research" of course.
He also pointed out that Linda Bollea obtained an appraisal before his order to close on the property, and that Terry Bollea obtained his own appraisal several weeks after the order. Terry Bollea's appraisal came in at $1,000,000 less than Linda's.
In a statement issued late Friday, Terry Bollea's attorneys said they, "are gratified" by the ruling, adding, "...the sole justification for this transaction offered by Linda Bollea and her attorneys--that it is a good investment--redefines cluelessness...Nowhere is this more true than in Las Vegas, which the prominent firm Altos Research just this week called 'the weakest U.S. housing market.'"
Glad to help, Hulkster. Glad to help.
Tuesday, July 15. 2008
Longtime bear Nouriel Roubini is out today with this bit of apocalyptic, headline grabbing prognostication. Roubini, you'll remember, predicted recession for 2006 and 2007 before claiming prescience in 2008. I wish I could write him off as a perma-bear, but there's too much actual data supporting his argument. In his latest media alert, Roubini mixes some valid (and scary) points with plausible conjecture and oddly placed policy opinions (I wish he'd leave out the last group, they detract from the compelling facts of the situation). The facts are:- Small banks have massive exposure to real estate (the average small bank has 67% of its assets in real estate)
- Dozens of large regional/national banks (a la IndyMac) are also bankrupt given their extreme exposure to real estate and will also go bust
- The FDIC that has already depleted 10% of its funds in the rescue of IndyMac alone
- Losses are spreading all the way up to prime mortgages and commercial real estate; to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans); ... to corporate bonds ... to CDSs where $62 trillion of nominal protection sits on top an outstanding stock of only $6 trillion of bonds
- In a typical US recession equity prices fall by an average of 28% relative to the peak. But this is not a typical US recession; it is rather a severe one associated with a severe financial crisis
Implications of the facts:
- FDIC will run out of funds and will have to be recapitalized by Congress as its insurance premia were woefully insufficient
- The collapse of many [risk] counterparties will lead to a systemic collapse of this market. Municipalities will go bust, hundreds of small banks, some major money center banks, the entire independent broker-dealer sector will evaporate along with $1-$2 trillion of credit losses.
- Equity prices will fall by about 40% relative to their peak. So, we are only barely mid-way in the meltdown of stock markets.
- Leaving aside the risk of a collapse of the US dollar given this easier monetary policy the Fed Funds rate may end up being closer to 0% than 1% by the end of this financial disaster
- The rest of the world is in for the pain too and as a result, energy and commodity prices will fall 20 to 30% from their recent bubbly peaks.
Dire stuff indeed. The skeptic in me can't help but ask why, in a severe global recession and with the subtraction of trillions of dollars of leverage, commodities that are up 500% in a few years would only pull pack 30%.
Monday, July 14. 2008
Earlier this week, we released an update to our Free Research pages (such as San Jose, CA) enabling support for two emerging different geographic information standards. Both standards are described in this Wikipedia article on Geotagging. Although these changes are not directly user-visible, if you View Source on any of our research pages you see two interesting bits.
In the <head> section of the page we now have meta tags that implement the GeoURL or 'Geo-Tag' standard:
<meta name="DC.title" content="SAN JOSE, CA real estate market data" />
<meta name="geo.region" content="US-CA" />
<meta name="geo.placename" content="SAN JOSE" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="37.335278;-121.893889" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="37.335278, -121.893889" />
If you are considering adding these to your own pages, I would recommend using Helmet Karger's Geo-Tag Generator to help get you started.
A bit further down the page in the <body> section, you will see the geo microformat code:
<div class="geo">
<abbr class="latitude" title="33.942778">N 33°56' 34.000799999989226" </abbr>
<abbr class="longitude" title="-113.173333">W 113°10' 23.998799999998255" </abbr>
</div>
Although search engine support for these data formats is only starting to take shape, some popular websites are joining the bandwagon. Flickr, for example, now includes the geo microformat for any image uploaded that included GPS coordinates in the EXIF data. If all goes well, you just might find a link to one of our city research pages on your next Google Maps search results.
And to do our part in evangelizing these data formats, I just added mini graphical badges to the page to indicate our support:
  
Friday, July 11. 2008
I always appreciate Brad Inman's perspective as a consummate real estate insider who is without obligation to cheerlead (like, ahem, some) and an entrenched market leader with the cojones to embrace change. Brad nails it today with 10 predictions for the next phase of the housing bubble burst. Here's a few: - Exotic loans of any kind will be completely out of favor, leaving many borrowers and many properties unfundable.
- Home sellers will become active lenders, but only those who have equity. Seller financing will help some transactions.
- Second homes, expensive houses and certain types of investment property will be penalized and difficult to fund.
Read the whole piece.
Oh my.
Three of four homes for sale in Stockton are in- or on the path to- foreclosure.
Tuesday, July 8. 2008
My friend Jeff, the Xbroker, finally launched RateSpeed.com a couple weeks ago. This is a project he's been working on for several years, a personal crusade to clean up the mortgage brokering business. Jeff gave me a demo the last month, and I've since referred multiple people-real, live home buyers and re-financers, to the site. I've been meaning to blog about the site for a while, and I'm now here to say, RateSpeed rocks. The site is incredibly useful for finding current mortgage rates and understanding what they cost.
RateSpeed's model is very simple: they source mortgage rate data from tons of originators, and feed that information back to you. They've done it with three characteristics shockingly rare in the mortgage world. - You don't have to give up anything but an email address.
- Any RateSpeed affiliate broker has to fix and publish their fees. The system doesn't allow for the-no-fees-but-we-gouge-you-on-the-rate-spread and other opaque pricing nastiness the industry is so famous for. What you see is what you get.
- The presentation of available mortgage products each with their costs and benefits is so straightforward, you can actually be making informed mortgage decisions in just a few seconds.
RateSpeed licenses the platform to mortgage brokers. In exchange, Brokers get an incredibly powerful marketing tool for their site - if I'm any gauge, consumers will gladly give up an email address to see the most current rates and a real, transparent picture of costs.
How cool is that?
Monday, July 7. 2008
We released our National Real Estate Report today. Here's the press release. Real Estate Report: Housing Prices Down By 0.5% in June
Report measures current real estate data in major markets around the country. Data shows Las Vegas the weakest US housing market with real estate prices down 3.6% in June. Current real estate data shows Denver the strongest US housing market in June with prices up fractionally over May 2008.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA July 8, 2008 - he Altos 10-City Composite Price Index showed a decline in asking prices of 0.5% in June and 0.8% for the past three months. Prices of properties listed for-sale increased in 15 of 26 major markets according to the Real-Time Real Estate Report, published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time real estate data, and market analysis consultancy Real IQ.
Asking prices fell at the fastest rate in Las Vegas - down 3.6% during June - and 7.2% over the most recent three-month period. This is the third consecutive month that Las Vegas has held that dubious honor. Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in Denver - up 2.6% in June and 6.4% over the most recent three-month period.
"While the Composite Index continues to show price declines, the rate of decline has slowed recently and more than half of the markets we track are showing sequential asking price increases over the past three months," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ. "Housing markets are local, and this downturn remains largely confined to specific geographic areas of the country with four states in particularly bad shape: California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona."
Listed property inventories increased substantially with the 10-City Composite markets showing an increase of 5.7% during the past three months and 1.9% in June. Inventory rose in 17 of 26 markets with the largest jumps in Los Angeles and San Diego, up 8.7% and 6.1% respectively in June.
Data in the Real-Time Housing Market Report is based on analysis of over one million properties currently listed for-sale in 26 metropolitan markets across the country. The report is the most timely source of housing market data on current market activity.
For the Altos 10-City Composite, the average days-on-market was 109, a slight increase from 106 in May. Eleven of 26 markets had an average days-on-market of over 100. By far, the market with the slowest rate of inventory was Miami at an average of 154 days-on-market. Austin led all markets with the fastest rate of inventory turnover at an average of 72 days-on-market.
"Inventory continues to increase which is typical during the seasonally strong spring and summer seasons," said Michael Simonsen, CEO and co-founder of Altos Research. "The true test will come in the fall when the market experiences seasonal weakness. If inventory, especially foreclosure listings, piles up too quickly, prices may start declining broadly again."
The report examines housing pricing, inventory levels and market conditions in 31 major U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, DC. The first report was published December 7, 2007 and is released every month. Report downloads are available at: www.altosresearch.com.
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