Friday, May 9. 2008May 2008 National Real Estate ReportOur latest National Real Estate Report is out this morning. The headline this month is that while the Altos National 10-City Composite price fell by 0.6% from last month, prices only fell in 7 of the 25 markets covered in the report. Maybe some signs of life? Too soon to call. Probably just spring. Here's where you can download the full PDF May 2008 National Real Estate Report. Here's a chart of our two national housing market composite price metrics. ![]() National Real Estate Prices as measured by the Altos 10-City and Altos 25-City Composites. Data through the first week of May 2008 Here's the full press release:
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Altos Research, House Prices, press coverage, Real Estate Report, real estate research
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08:03
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Tuesday, May 6. 2008Two Sites Digging the DataTwo very cool announcements today from Friends of Altos - both are great examples of real estate data helping people make better decisions in this crazy housing market. I just love this kind of innovation. Krunching.com First up is Krunching.com: These guys built an investor-focused site with tons of data about properties for sale, investor metrics, property analysis. You can tell it was built by real estate investors answering their own property analysis questions. The site is super-fast and really pretty (in a web 2.0 sense.) If you're an investor, Krunching is going to be a powerful tool for you. They're taking a freemium business model - they give away a bunch of great data for free and their power users sign up for paid services. They've built Altos local real estate data and analysis into their premium services, so if you don't buy from us, you can get our data in your Krunching subscriptions. My only complaint is that they've used an OFHEO regional chart on their investment summary page. The feds are telling us what happened to home prices in September. Thanks guys. (Hey Brian - you need an AltosChart on that page! Get with the program!) Krunching is only available in California right now, but it's a great start for a national product. Great job guys. Homethinking Mortgage Also launched today is a really cool mortgage market analysis product from longtime Altos partner Homethinking.com. I get questions every day from people trying to understand the scope of the mortgage crisis. The Homethinking guys have taken a huge pile of mortgage data and presented it in a super-clean, very powerful visual interface. Want to know how much exposure your town has to sub-prime loans? Homethinking will tell you. Want to know what percent of mortgage applicants are rejected? Check it out. Huge amounts of information in here. Again, thanks to the feds, this data is a year old. Still, it's better information than the world had access to yesterday. So kudos to Niki and team at Homethinking. Looks fantastic. And it comes in cool embeddable widgets!
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in clients, Investment conditions, Mortgage and Lending, Real Estate Data
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07:55
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Thursday, May 1. 2008Fastest home sales in BostonWe did this fun infographic for the Boston Globe's spring real estate section last week.
What we found mirrors much of the rest of the country: the close in, nice neighborhoods are where the demand is. Go further out and time-to-sell a home climbs into the many months range. Click on any city name for the real estate report for that town.
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Boston Real Estate, press coverage, Real Estate Data
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11:31
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Tuesday, April 22. 2008Twitter On
In a fit of myopia, I held out against Twitter for a year, but now I've been tweeting (yes, tweeting) for a couple months. I've come to the realization that Twitter is the social network I've been waiting for. Twitter's focus on pure communication elevates it above the colleague/friend/acquaintance/follower asymmetry problem in the Facebooks of the web. With Twitter I can listen to people who interest me-whether or not they are my "friend". I don't creep them out when I listen. Likewise, my Twitter followers are people who are interested in me and/or Altos whether or not I've ever met them. I'll often publish market data nuggets on Twitter that are too finite for a blog post. I'll post info on new products to Twitter before it goes anywhere else. Why? It's easy, and the listeners have, by definition, said they want to know. So in the interest of developing this communication channel, if you are interested in what I/Altos say/do/visit/publish, then follow me on Twitter. Still asking, WTF is Twitter? See Tara Hunt's explanation Last Month's News: Sales down, prices upNAR is out this morning with data from March (and updates to February). Thanks guys. Summary: March prices ticked up from February ($195k to $200k), but sales volume resumed its decline. The money quote from NAR's release: [NAR economist Lawrence Yun] "Though mortgage rates are at historically low levels, some borrowers are facing restrictive lending practices in declining markets," Mr. Yun said. Some borrowers?! If you're looking for the inflection point at the bottom of this market, watch the trends in lending to people with good credit. Right now, even good buyers are blocked. More at WSJ
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in news, Real Estate Data, Supply and Demand
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05:12
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Sunday, April 20. 2008Is there investor opportunity in this market?I did a bunch of press calls last week and they all had one question in common: Everyone wants to know if it's a good time to buy. Our BusinessWeek article from Friday carries the theme:
Prices are down so much, there must be bargains, right? Well, yes. But don't kid yourself. Getting a steal on a great property is NOT a slam dunk. Glenn Kelman at Redfin has an excellent post on the challenges involved with mining for bargains in short sales, foreclosures, and other distressed properties. (aside: Glenn's Redfin corporate blog is consistently cogent and entertaining. If you're at all interested in real estate or startups, you should read it.) Some of our Wall Street clients are well-financed funds that buy distressed mortgages from the banks. In many cases they're actually taking ownership of hundreds of properties every month. Guess what. As a buyer looking for a bargain, these guys are your competition. So what's the recipe for investing in this market?
In short, bargain shopping for homes is like any bargain hunting. It takes insight and perseverance. It takes relationships. And above all it takes the financial wherewithal to capitalize when the opportunity strikes. Good luck.
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Investment conditions, Mortgage and Lending, news, press coverage
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15:24
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Friday, April 18. 2008Altos Media Watch: Business WeekWe made in the news again! This time in a recent piece by Prashant Gopal at Business Week. "It's Spring. Ready to Buy a Home Yet?" - looks at the buying upside in today's national real estate market. Finally some positive press from the media in a sea of dismal reporting over the past year - yippee! From the article:
The Texas markets look pretty solid over the past year with Dallas continuing to buck the national trends:
Monday, April 14. 2008Charts around the Bay Area for April 14Spent much of the day looking up data for press requests. Everybody wants to know if we're at a bottom. Thought I'd drop some in here. Not a lot of time to write today, so here are some comparison charts for homes around the Bay Area. San Francisco, Burlingame, Walnut Creek, and San Jose. All Data as of April 11 2008. ![]() Median Price Trends for homes in San Francisco, Burlingame, San Jose, and Walnut Creek. ![]() Days on Market for the same cities. Note the seasonal decline still leaves us higher than last year at this time. ![]() Our Market Action Index for the same cities. This is a composite of market demand statistics rolled into one number. Under 30 implies demand weakness, or "buyer opportunity." Under 20 is frigid. Given the tight scale on this chart, conditions are not worsening considerably in the last few months.
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Bay Area real estate, House Prices, Real Estate Data, Trend Charts
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15:12
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Tuesday, April 8. 2008Redfin Select - The Discounter Moves Up MarketRedfin, the discount real estate broker with a bitchin' website and a CEO who goes Given Redfin's history, I had to check the date of the Redfin blog post to make sure it wasn't dated April 1. Although Glenn Kelman hinted in a comment here a couple weeks ago that something was coming. Select is simply a way to let home buyers opt for some hand-holding on as many home tours as they'd like. They pay a little more and get a little more service. Redfin usually refunds two-thirds of the home buyer's commission. For people who opt for Select, they'll get 50% of the commission refunded. Still a good option for buyers who want to save some cash, but Redfin makes 50% more per transaction. This is huge step towards making Redfin a viable company. Kudos to Glenn and team. BTW - I mentioned in my December post of 2008 Predictions for the RE.net that Redfin was going to have to make this move. (I've hit two of those so far. We'll see if Rich Barton promotes himself out of Zillow before year's end...) Here's what I said about the Redfin business model at the time:
In short, it's a smart move. And it's not surprising, because Kelman seems to be no fool. Good for their clients and good for them.
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Real Estate Agents, Real Estate Marketing, Technology
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00:42
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Saturday, April 5. 2008A Hard Line on Foreclosure and BankruptcyEd Glaeser in yesterday's Boston Globe lays out an excellent argument on the right approach for handling the foreclosure crisis. Though he's more lenient than I'd be.
Despite his opening position, Glaeser seems a little more apt to "bail out" the overstretched homeowner than I can imagine. He doesn't sympathize with the speculators, but where do the speculators end and an honest redistribution recipient begin? Assuming you figure that out, I suppose, then spread some tax money around. But it's the passel of legislative "fixes" scare the daylights out of me. As Glaeser points out:
Let's be clear here: telling lenders after the fact that their lending terms are subject to bureaucratic whims is akin to Chavez nationalizing oil. It might feel good in the short term, but it the long term, the wells will run dry. Here's hoping we avoid the overzealous legislators "fixing" us into oblivion.
Friday, April 4. 2008Charts of the Day: Inventory vs. Price in four citiesIf you've ever needed an illustration of the supply/demand curve, here is one for you, via the real estate market. I grabbed the inventory levels of four cities, each about 30,000 people big, all reasonably prosperous, nice places in their respective regions. Frisco, Texas; Sammamish, Washington; Los Altos, California; and Winnetka, Illinois. ![]() Single family homes for sale in four cities. data as of March 28 2008. My overblogging tendencies want me to expound on the reasons for these inventory differences: building regulation, NASDAQ exposure, etc. But I won't. I'm just going to give you the price chart that illustrates the inversion, and let you conjecture for yourself. ![]() Median Price for the single family homes in the four cities. Altos Links:
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Real Estate Data, Supply and Demand, Trend Charts
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05:19
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Thursday, April 3. 2008April 2008 National Real Estate Report AvailableThe data from Q1 2008 is in. We published our National Real Estate Report today. Key Highlights:
Read the full National Real Estate Report (PDF Download). Here's the press release.
Altos Links:
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in news, Real Estate Data, Real Estate Report, Real Estate Trends
at
09:32
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Tuesday, April 1. 2008Las Vegas Existing Home Inventory Levels Stabilizing?AltosChart of the Day: After an intense run-up in inventory levels in the Las Vegas market last fall, we've now seen several month of stabilization. Still all kinds of craziness to shake out there, but are we seeing a the first inkling of the bottom? Prices show no signs of coming out of their swoon yet. So you be the judge. ![]() Las Vegas area existing home inventory. May not include some foreclosures and other general craziness. Data as of March 28 2008 Altos Links: This is data for the whole Las Vegas MSA. The latest data will be in our forthcoming National Real Estate Report later this week. Here's the Las Vegas Real Estate Report for the city.
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Las Vegas real estate, Real Estate Data, Trend Charts
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23:53
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Monday, March 31. 2008Chart of the Day: Price Per Square Foot San Francisco CondosA couple of charts to chew on this morning. How's the condo market in San Francisco? Are all those new developments flooding the market yet? Let's look at pricing and value trends for Condos in the city. ![]() Median Price Per Square Foot for condominiums and TICs in San Francisco. Data as of March 30 2008. Looks like pricing trends are holding nicely in the past year. Why is that? A quick hypothesis is that despite the fact that there are tons of new developments coming on line, the existing inventory of condos is actually very low relative to the population and immigration in San Francisco. SocketSite shows some year over year inventory charts for real estate in San Francisco today. Here's how the inventory breaks out between single family and condominiums. ![]() Inventory of homes for sale in San Francisco as of March 30 2008. Includes pendings. Altos links: San Francisco real estate reports
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in Bay Area real estate, Real Estate Data, Real Estate Market
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07:48
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Friday, March 28. 2008RETech South Roundup
Great conversations on real estate video, blogging, search optimization. I did a panel where we talked about leveraging widgets on your site and in your marketing. For me the most informative session was on video. I've not previously been a video guy but then I'm not selling houses. But the panel had a chance to dive into some of the great innovations in video that are really exploding the medium for realtors. From cheap easy cameras, to professional videographers, and powerful presentation tools. Rock on. Rudy proved again why Pete Flint got a steal bringing him on board as Trulia's social media guru. And I always enjoy working with Dustin, Jon, and the maniacs at Domus (who contributed a lot to this day too. golf clap for Pat and Kevin.) We met some new friends too. Atlanta Real Estate blogger Kathy Drewien is going to be spicing up her market data posts with spiffy AltosCharts. With Michael Fournier, we're growing our reach in the Charlotte market. Michael liked to point out that Charlotte is the only one of the 20 Case Shiller-measured housing markets where median home price is up in the twelve months ending January. Desiree at Bella Web Design sums up the day nicely. Some Altos links: AltosCharts trend charts widgets
Posted by Mike Simonsen
in fun, Real Estate Marketing, Technology
at
08:16
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Quick LinksAbout Altos Research Corp.Altos Research is the premier source for real-time real estate research. Our real estate data and local real estate reports are used by financial firms, investors, and thousands of real estate professionals around the country. This blog is primarily authored by Mike Simonsen, co-founder and CEO of Altos Research. Other ways to be in touch: RSS StuffSubscribe by emailFeedblitz sends an email only when a new article has been posted in this blog. Usually a few times per week.
Recent EntriesMay 2008 National Real Estate Report
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