Altos Research Real Estate Insights - real estate research

Guest Post: Investment Riches & AltosCharts

nospam@example.com (Scott Sambucci) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:22:34 -0700

Today, we have a guest blog post from Tim Miner, President & Founder of InvestmentRiches. InvestmentRiches provides real estate investors with detailed market research and analysis with sections such as "Best Place" and "City Profiles." They've been a client of Altos Research for a while now, and we asked Tim to write about how his company has utilized AltosCharts and AltosStats on InvestmentRiches.com. Here's what he had to say... (We did some minor editing, but the rest is directly from Tim.)

It has took us a few months to dial in our City Profiles the way we wanted them but we have finally arrived. The feedback from our members has been tremendous. Investment Riches is a full service real estate investment company. We created the City Profiles and Best Places four years ago to inform our real estate investors on the top markets nationwide. With the Altos Research market data and AltosCharts highlighted in our profiles, we have raised the bar to a new level.

Our real estate investor members rely on our real-time real estate data to make investment decisions that would have been made with blind commitment in the past. Knowing what is developing in the resale market is vital to investment success. Throwing a dart at a map just doesn't cut it these days - investors have accepted that and have made changes to their due diligence process. We are happy to report that many have turned to InvestmentRiches.com for that research, and the information tha Altos Research helps us provide is a tremendous addition to our offering.

As the market has been changing, so has Investment Riches. We have moved more aggressively into the advisory capacity and our real estate brokerage has benefited from the new relationships in the investor community. The Altos Research market data offered through our site helps to legitimize our platform during the initial visit for new guests of InvestmentRiches.com. Many have reported that they immediately felt confident with our team because of the depth of information we provide, both on the City Profiles and Best Places.

We are excited to continue our relationship with Altos Research, as we find new ways to leverage the market data that they provide. Here are a few direct links:

Investment Riches: http://www.investmentriches.com
City Profiles: http://www.investmentriches.com/investment_properties.php
Best Places:
http://www.investmentriches.com/best_places.php

National Real Estate Prices Down 0.5% in June

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:26:08 -0700

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.

Will Prices Continue to Fall In Milpitas?

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:48:00 -0700

Here's a funny Meebo-IM chat I had with a home buyer yesterday. This guy is looking for a negotiating angle with home sellers. Smart!

[15:37] meeboguest: hi

[15:37] mikesimonsen: hi

[15:38] meeboguest: will prices in Milpitas Area continue to fall?

[15:38] mikesimonsen:

[15:39] meeboguest: seriously....how do I negotiate with seller to factor another 10% reduction in price?

[15:40] mikesimonsen: well, you can bring our Milpitas report with you and use it to illustrate not only prices, but demand levels and days on market trends

[15:41] mikesimonsen: you can say, "Look at this, you've got easily another few months before this thing moves and I'm willing to buy now!"

[15:41] mikesimonsen: In the reports it even breaks up the data by price range in that zip code

[15:42] mikesimonsen: so you can say, "The market is even worse for sellers of homes like this. So you're lucky you found me!"

[15:42] meeboguest: thanks...I am even luckier if that report is free

[15:43] mikesimonsen: for $19 you're getting a bargain!

[15:43] mikesimonsen: I'll expect a thank-you bottle of wine when you get your price

15:43] meeboguest: how do i get the report?

[15:44] mikesimonsen: go to this page, register, and buy the basic report: http://www.altosresearh.com/research/CA/MILPITAS

[15:44] meeboguest: thanx

[15:45] mikesimonsen: you bet! good luck!

What do you think the chances are that the Seller's Agent is prepared with market data to counter-negotiate? My guess is that they'll get blindsided by this aggressive buyer's approach. Maybe, just maybe, we can motivate the seller's agent to prepare better in the future...

Case Shiller - Surprise! Home Prices dropped a few months ago

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:01:53 -0700

MacroMarkets released the monthly Case Shiller Index today. Case Shiller tracks repeat sales of single family homes. Like most real estate data (except ours of course) the Case Shiller lags the actual market by several months. This is data for March 2008.

	CSI March 07	CSI Feb 08	CSI March 08	Feb 08 v Mar 08	Mar 07 v Mar 08
Boston	168.52	160.31	158.54	-1.10%	-5.90%
Chicago	167.04	153.33	150.35	-1.94%	-10.00%
Denver	134.20	127.50	127.43	-0.05%	-5.00%
Las Vegas	228.55	177.18	169.31	-4.44%	-25.90%
Los Angeles	264.58	214.83	207.11	-3.59%	-21.70%
Miami	276.89	218.74	208.88	-4.51%	-24.60%
New York	212.39	198.46	196.58	-0.95%	-7.40%
San Diego	233.28	190.34	185.44	-2.57%	-20.50%
San Francisco	211.09	174.54	168.38	-3.53%	-20.20%
Washington DC	237.14	207.05	202.34	-2.27%	-14.70%
10-City Composite	219.67	190.58	186.06	-2.37%	-15.30%

So what does the national real estate market look like right now? Here's the Altos 10-City Composite as of the end of May 2008. You'll be seeing this data in the Case Shiller Index in three months.

Nationally we saw a less-steep price decline in the last few months than we did at the beginning of the year.

As a bonus, let's look at the Denver chart. The Denver metro actually defied the national carnage until October of last year. Case Shiller picked that up too and you can see that Denver is the smallest of the declines in the sample. We've actually seen a small uptick in Denver pricing this spring. (Don't be fooled by the scale on this chart. With the tight scale, it looks like a rocket, but it's only a few thousand dollars difference.)

Home price trends in the Denver metro market for the 12 months ending May 2008. The tight scale on this chart makes it look stronger than it is, but at least it's not falling through the floor.

May 2008 National Real Estate Report

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:03:41 -0700

Our 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:

Housing Prices Down by 0.6% in April 2008

National real estate report sees prices falling in only 7 of 25 metropolitan markets. Real-time real estate data also indicates rising inventories and stabilizing market time in many parts of the country.

Mountain View, May 8 2008 - The Altos 10-City Composite Price Index showed a decline in asking prices of 0.9% over the past three months and continued that decline in April with a decrease of 0.6% for the month. Prices of properties listed for-sale fell in only 7 of 25 major markets according to the Real-Time Real Estate Report, jointly published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time real estate research,

Asking prices fell at the fastest rate in Las Vegas down 2.7% during April. The largest three-month declines occurred in Las Vegas and Philadelphia, off 5.1% and 4.5% respectively. Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in Denver up 2.6% and Charlotte up 2.1%. Prices also increased by more than one percent in April in Boston, Houston, Dallas and San Francisco.
"While this is not shaping up to be a typically strong spring selling season," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ, "we are now seeing price stability or price increases in most markets. During April, only the most troubled markets such as Las Vegas, Miami, Tampa, Philadelphia and Phoenix, continued to show asking price declines."

For-sale property inventories increased in 19 of 25 markets during April. Inventory in the Altos 10-City Composite markets rose just 0.8% for the month and 5.6% during the most recent three-month period. 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. For the Altos 10-City Composite, the average days-on-market was 111 an improvement from 119 in March and 122 in February. Miami and Detroit experienced the longest time-on-market spans with an average days-on-market of 153 and 143 respectively. Austin led all markets with the fastest rate of inventory turnover at an average of 67 days-on-market.

"Inventory buildup is typical during the spring selling season but so far it has been fairly modest and that is reflected in the decline in average days-on-market," said Michael Simonsen, CEO and co-founder of Altos Research. "Tight mortgage credit, foreclosures, and economic fears continue to put pressure on the real estate market but if inventory growth remains restrained, we may see supply and demand balance out. "

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.

Real Estate Data: Austin Edition

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:40:39 -0800

The New York Times last week carried a story on the tale of two housing markets.

AUSTIN, Tex. â The real estate market these days is a tale of two Americas, and one of them is not doing too badly.

In the America of big-city housing markets, especially on the coasts and in the struggling industrial Midwest, the huge run-up in values in recent years has given way to big drops in prices and sales volume. Millions of people owe more than their houses are worth.

But in the other America, specifically in cities like Austin; Grand Forks, N.D.; Yakima, Wash.; and Salem, Ore., the available evidence suggests the real estate market is holding up. Prices there never boomed as crazily as they did in the big cities, and now, even though volume is down almost everywhere, prices in many of these towns are firm or rising.

We'll leave aside the fact falling prices in the struggling industrial towns and the falling prices on the coast are barely related to each other and focus instead on the last statement.

Are home prices in Austin, Texas indeed holding up? Let's look:

Comparing home price trends in Austin Texas, Phoenix Arizona, and San Diego CA

From our perspective, Austin is indeed holding up better than some of the most bubbly markets, like Phoenix and San Diego.

Keep in mind though that in every market, the answer is: it depends. It depends on your price point, it depends on your neighborhood. In fact if we dive into Austin a little deeper, we find where that even though the prices haven't adjusted deeply, we can see where market demand is indeed cooling.

Days on Market for homes in Austin Texas. Data as of February 15 2008. Each line is a price quartile. First Quartile are the most expense 25% of homes on the market.

Days on market is climbing steadily across all price points. Despite a seasonal improvement in market time, The high end of Austin is on the market for a pretty long time right now. Buyers are in no hurry.

Furthermore, in Austin, when you look at the price quartiles, you can see the top of the market is squeezing but the bottom remains reasonably solid. This often implies, as the Times suggests, that the underlying economy is strong, immigration is positive, and people aren't so worried about their jobs. Here's the chart of home prices in Austin, by quartile. Note the slight squeeze at the top end of the market.

Real Estate Price trends in Austin Texas as of February 15 2008

So I'll conclude with a cautious agreement with the Times. Yes indeed there are markets so far escaping major carnage. Many of these markets didn't have the incredible upside in the past few years, so that stands to reason. Finally though, nearly all markets are showing signs of weakness. The key worry for all these markets is that they're following the economy, not leading it. If a recession evolves into full bloom, I don't see how anyone is spared.

Links:

Austin Real Estate Report

San Diego Real Estate Report

Phoenix Real Estate Report

Real Estate Data: Dallas Edition

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:40:06 -0800

In the Dallas real estate market? D Magazine's Dallas Dirt blog is a great read. Among the insidery local rumors and excellent house porn, Candy Evans has been tapping our AltosCharts lately for some insightful interpretation of the housing market trends at the local level for all y'all Texans.

[aside: as a snobby Californian, this is what I instinctively think of when I think Dallas homes. But this makes me want to move there.]

Link: Our free Dallas Real Estate Research

February 2008 National Housing Market Report

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:41:34 -0800

Last week we published the February editition of our National Housing Market report [PDF download]. I was traveling and forgot to add it to the blog, so here it is. We've expanded the coverage this month and added a few more cities ebyond the initial 20 covered by the Case Shiller Index. We'll add a few more important cities in the upcoming versions of the reports too.

Here are the highlights from this month's report.

Listing prices declined in 19 of 22 markets during January. Prices only increased in the New York metro area during January and were flat in Dallas and Phoenix.
The largest monthly decline of 3.6% occurred in San Francisco. Over the three month period, listing prices in San Francisco have fallen by 6.1% from $708,551 to $665,100. The other California markets of Los Angeles and San Diego logged declines of more than 2% for the month of January.
Property inventories declined in most markets except in the Northwestern markets of Seattle and Portland. Inventories tightened sharply in the Midwestern markets of Cleveland and Detroit with decreases of 10.4% and 5.4% respectively during January. Seasonal declines in listing inventories are typical during the winter months.
Markets with the longest time-on-market are Miami and Minneapolis at an average of 144 days-on-market. Miamiâs days-on-market only increased slightly from the previous monthâs 143 days while Minneapolis jumped over 5% from 136 to 144 days. Sixteen of 22 markets had an average days-on-market of over 100.
Denver led all markets with the fastest rate of inventory turnover at 61 days, followed closely by Dallas and San Diego at 80 days. The sharp decrease in Denverâs days-on-market indicator â almost 39% during the past three months â coupled with an inventory reduction of over 11% during the same period, should be a positive for listing prices in the coming spring selling season.

Measuring the Decline in the Sacramento Housing Market

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:24:13 -0800

Jonathan Miller published the November Radar Logic RPX housing market report over the weekend. It's easy to spot that Sacramento is leading the nation down.

[aside: Radar Logic is cool. They measure Price Per Square Foot and try to do it across all properties, condos and single family homes, new and existing construction. No small task. The price per square foot approach is intended to measure value of the property regardless of the size of the property itself. In the real estate derivatives trading business, Radar is getting all the mindshare. Case Shiller is falling behind. more here.]

In the report just published for November, Sacramento saw a price-per-square-foot decline of 18%. Zowie. For those of you unfamiliar with California's central valley, this is an area dominated by lots of new construction, in huge projects, partly as Bay Area super-exurb. So the underlying economy in the Central Valley isn't nearly as dynamic as San Francisco, San Jose, or Los Angeles. Also much less dominated by the high-end, Sacramento is feeling the subprime fallout harder than most.

So Radar Logic is publishing for November. What are the real-time stats saying? Sacramento is not seeing any relief yet. Here's our price per square foot for Sacramento through February 1 2008.

Price Per Square Foot for single family homes in Sacramento, CA through Feb 1 2008. Notice the price is slightly higher than the Radar Logic number. That's because we track Condominiums separately and this is for the city of Sacramento specifically. The important factor is the direction.

Sacramento Housing Market Data Links:

Our free Sacramento Real Estate Research page

Here's a solid Sacramento Area Blog for more local flavor.

Can Economic Stimulus Save The Housing Market?

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 06:32:55 -0800

Been getting a few requests about our opinion on the various proposes economic stimulus packages in the works - including sharply reduced short term rates, and some kind of tax relief. How will they impact the housing market? Are we seeing any psychological impact already?

First things first: Are we in recession already? Is a recession inevitable?

From where we sit, the current-recession answer is, No, it doesn't appear so. Slowdown, yes. But exports are strong with the weak dollar, and there other signs of okay-ness out there. Gonna be hard to avoid one before the end of the year though.

Here's my favorite way to look at recession probability. The folks at ECRI publish a weekly leading economic indicator (WLI). In several decades they've not missed a recession call and have had no false-positives. This data is good.

Weekly Leading Indicators. Recession Watch from ECRI

What's this chart tell us? This data leads the economy by 6-9 months. ECRI looks for the Three P's of drop in its economic statistics before it calls a recession. Pronounced (check), persistent (check), pervasive (allllmost).

We're in the danger zone here, which is why immediate monetary (interest rates) and fiscal (taxes, etc) stimulus might just work.

Where does the housing market fall into all this?

We know that the real estate market is generally lousy. But really, really low mortgage rates mean that you can lock in affordability, if you have the credit. From Bloomberg:

The yield curve as of January 27 2008. Low rates are good. source: Bloomberg. [whose New York offices I visited last week, incidentally. Very cool. Googlesque. Maybe nicer.]

For a long time, our worst case scenario here at Altos has been recession plus high interest rates. We've avoided that so far. As a result the pain in the housing market is most pronounced at the margins: Overstretched, with weak credit. New home construction. Here's what I mean.

Seattle, Kirkland, and Redmond home prices as of January 25, 2008. Not the persistent weakness at the low-end of the market. This scenario is similar to what we're seeing in most economically strong parts of the country.

So the weakness, while felt across the spectrum, is most acutely painful at the low-end of the market. That implies that a deep recession with it's job loss and income uncertainty is what it'll take to knock the final leg of the stool out from under the the rest of the market.

Conclusion: stimulate away, Uncle Sam, and do it quick.

Our Complete Real Estate Research Product Line

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:28:20 -0800

As you know, Altos Research specializes in real-time market analytics in the housing market. What's less obvious are some of the cool ways people use our stuff. As any successful startup, I suppose, we have lots of customers using our real estate data in ways totally unexpected initially.

Recently, people have been asking us for a more complete list of the Altos Research services and a little about who uses them. I thought I'd assemble a list here for easy consumption, organized by the types of folks on our customer list. (Apologies in advance that this post is a little more salesy than usual. Just looking to provide a little insight into our company. Do check out some of the sites I link to below. There's a lot of great work out there.)

Real Estate Agents and Teams

Product: Our Professional Subscription. Personalized reports + AltosCharts and lead generation forms for web sites.

Usage: Home Buyer and Seller information, lead generation, blogging

Reference Customers: We have hundreds of professional subscribers, but a really great usage of the system for driving web leads is done by the Harper Team in San Ramon, CA. Our friend Chris Iverson with the Ventoux Group at Keller Williams in Palo Alto is highly effective at integrating market analytics into his listing presentations and working with buyers. He teaches a class on the topic. Chris Schweiger in Scottsdale is one of many Altos-bloggers. [A more complete list of Altos-bloggers coming soon.]

Real Estate Brokerages, Title Company Offices

Product: Professional Subscription, site licenses, occasional customization

Usage: We frequently set up office-level subscriptions for brokers who sponsor for their whole team.

Reference Customers: Paragon Real Estate Group in San Francisco. Fortune International in Miami is another. Oakville Properties is a client with offices in the Bay Area, Las Vegas, and Orlando.

Home Buyers and Sellers, Independent Investors, Appraisers, some Agents

Product: Market Analysis Details Reports, per city. Our Basic subscription.

Usage: People want to know more about the market than their competition and don't need the personal marketing/branding benefits of our Pro subscription level. When we started this company, we naively thought this group would be our bread and butter. In truth, our local market free research pages drives a lot of our web traffic and is only indirectly responsible for driving our major sources of revenue. Note that we're now available in over 20 metros around the country (Here's Portland!) We open up more each week.

Some of these folks will add the AltosCharts to their subscription so they can build their own reports, query different stats on the fly and learn about any zip code in their region.

Reference Customers: We have tons of basic subscribers all around the country now, even some international (folks who tend to be researching the condo markets in Las Vegas and Miami. Surprise, surprise). My favorite quote was from a real estate investor, Dan, who said, "I LOVE your reports! I'd have had to spend a YEAR compiling this kind of information for myself!" [his caps, not mine.]

Financial Firms, Banks, Hedge Funds, Lenders

Product:AltosCharts and AltosStats Data. Bulk data subscriptions.

Usage: Trading and fundamental analysis. We have a growing stable of Wall Street players that feed on our data pipe--from the bulge-bracket banks to long/short hedge funds. The most obvious application for our real-time market data is the housing futures markets. I write occasionally about how our data leads the Case Shiller Index by three months in basically all the markets we cover. The Radar Logic RPX is actually getting more attention on Wall Street these days and we'll be publishing some latest analysis there very soon too. Our trading clients tend to use our market data as an input into massive "quant" analytics systems. They suck in CSV files, where ours is one of many input sources, bringing a unique perspective.

In addition to the real estate derivatives markets, some of our Wall Street subscribers use our data for fundamental analysis in their equities trades. For example, if you're a hedge fund thinking of going long a regional bank in the South East, you might want to understand how the trends in the local housing market are going to impact their loan portfolio.

Reference customers: Most of these folks prefer to remain, ahem, anonymous. Though a good example is Tradition Financial Services, one the leading real estate derivatives brokers, who use our data for spot-pricing the housing market and publishing research for their derivatives clients.

Real Estate Web Sites and Consumer/Investor Portals

Product: AltosCharts - local market data

Usage: We're seeing a number of really innovative startups working on providing great decision making tools for consumers and particularly investors in real estate. These folks turn to Altos to easily answer for their site visitors/members, "Hows the market?" They integrate AltosCharts into the user

Reference Partners: DeedQuest is doing some cool real estate investor products. CondoDomain is building a national condominium site for consumers.

Agent Marketing and Technology Providers

Product: AltosCharts and Partner Program

Usage: These partners provide web sites, marketing, blogging, lead generation tools to real estate agents. We love our partners. We find great symbiotic relationships, because we're all helping real estate pros market more efficiently in an internet world.

Reference partners: Kevin and Pat at Domus, RealBird, BringTheBlog are all great examples.

Who knew the real estate ecosystem was so complex? And we've only just scratched the surface. 2008 is rocking already. We'll have some big announcements, new partners, and new products coming this year. Stick around!

San Jose Housing Market starts 2008 with twice the inventory of 2007

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 08:36:44 -0800

Some posts just write themselves.

Inventory of homes on the market in San Jose California as of January 2008

Single Family Home Prices in San Jose California as of January 1, 2008

Can't. Help. It. Must. Write. More.

Ugly? You betcha. Do these tell the whole story? Not a chance. In Silicon Valley, San Jose is the dominant market, of course. San Jose is a diverse community, with lots of sub-prime and other crazy loans in the past few years. But also some really great neighborhoods with prosperous, fully employed folks. Lots of big, but not-risky loans too. Here's how the market in a desirable part of town, Willow Glen, is holding up. I've done the price chart in Quartiles so you can see the trends at each price point in the market.

Homes in the Willow Glen neighborhood in San Jose, CA zip 95125. Prices holding up much better than the broader market in San Jose.

Available homes in Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose CA as of January 1 2008. Inventory is up, but much less than the rest of the city.

Link: San Jose Housing Market.

Real-Time National Housing Report Released

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:54:00 -0800

When we started this company, one of the things we envisioned was creating a National Housing Market Report -- one that would be a right-now alternative to the laggard OFHEO reports and even the Case Shiller releases. Well today is the day, folks. The Altos Research Real IQ National Housing Market Report is here!

In it we look at 20 major metro markets, publish some key stats about pricing and supply and demand trends and we draw some conclusions about what's happening out there. The U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) covered in the report include: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, DC.

We're working in conjunction with Stephen Bedekian from Real IQ. Stephen is an industry leader, writer, and consultant and he helped bring this project together. This being the first issue, it took us a few extra days of editing. In future months, we'll be aiming to publish the report just a few days after month's end.

The latest version of the report is available for download on our financial institutions page. Or you can download the PDF here.

The Press Release headline this month isn't any shocking news - Surprise! Prices are still under pressure! But we're laying the foundation here to be the first to identify the eventual bottom of the market. From the press release:

REPORT: HOUSING PRICES
CONTINUE DECLINE IN NOVEMBER

Time-on-Market
Increased as Housing Market Demand Falls Faster than Supply

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
- December 13, 2007 â The listing prices on properties in 18 of 20 major markets across the U.S. fell during the month of November. San Diego experienced the steepest decline with listing prices falling 5.8 percent as the recent wildfires exacted a toll on demand. This information was presented in the newly-launched Real-Time National Housing Market Report*, published by Altos Research, the premier source for real-time, real-estate market research and Real IQâ¢, a market analysis consultancy.

The Real-Time National Housing Market Report is based on an analysis of data from over one million properties currently listed for sale in 20 metropolitan markets across the country and represents the most timely source of housing market data on current market activity.

âReal estate information tends to be highly latent and subject to a lot of revisions,â said Michael Simonsen CEO and co-founder of Altos Research. âIt takes several months before the S&P/Case Shiller Index or the
OFHEO data is released for a given month. When you're making investment decisions or trading derivatives these lag times are simply killers.â

Another key trend noted in the new report was an increase in the time-on-market duration for homes on sale in virtually all markets. Miami experienced the longest time-on-market span with an average days-on-market of 137 in November. Minneapolis had the second highest average days-on-market at 125.

Listed property inventory levels displayed seasonal declines in many markets with the exception of Las Vegas where for-sale property listings increased 6.6% over the past three month. âWhile inventory levels declined in most major markets, the decline in supply could not keep pace with the rapid fall in demand,â said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ. âWe expect time-on-market will continue to lengthen and apply pressure on homeowner pricing decisions until buyers regain confidence and demand levels off. So far that point is not in sight.â

*The first report was published December 7, 2007 and will be released every month. Report downloads are available from Altos Research.

John Keith, Boston Real Estate Broker

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:50:14 -0800

John Keith

This post is written by our client John Keith a real estate broker in Boston, Massachusetts. We first met John when Scott sat next to him at the opening keynote of the Inman Connect conference in San Francisco this summer. At the time, we were just opening up our coverage in Boston and John jumped at the chance to work with us. We're glad he did.

John's blog is excellent. He's been very effective integrating the Altos market analytics information into his posts. So we asked him to write a post for us about how he uses the Altos Research services in his business, his blog, and with his clients.

John also generously included an endorsement, which I'm more than happy to include here. Note: I've done a tiny little bit of editing, and I added the images. Everythig else comes directly from John. Enjoy:

About John Keith

I am a Boston real estate agent. I have a blog devoted to Boston Real Estate, at bostonreb.com.

My blog has a main page with daily updates of news and information about the Boston real estate market. In addition, on this page, visitors can search through all the condos and single-family homes listed for sale in our local Multiple Listing Service. Also, visitors may click through to pages of information I have written that are of specific interest to buyers, sellers, investors, etc.

I signed-up as an Altos Research client several months ago. I thought it would be a great way to provide another much-needed service to my site's visitors. More importantly, I figured it would make me be seen as an "expert" on the Boston real estate market. Therefore, visitors would be more likely to inquire about using me as their real estate agent, increasing my business (and my revenue).

After being an Altos Research client for several months, I have seen very positive results and can say I'm very happy I have made the investment.

How I Leverage Altos Research in My Blog and Business
Now that I have access to them, I've tried a couple different ways of using the reports and graphs.

Right now, I have it set up so that there is one main graph on my blog's main page, for the city of Boston as a whole. It updates automatically, once each week's reports are finalized at Altos (every Monday evening).

I also have a link on my blog's main page directing visitors to another page where they can download any of the Altos weekly market reports (I subscribe to eleven Boston ZIP codes).

Banner for John Keith's blog BostonREB.com. Note the MLS Search, Market Reports, and New Developments dedicated pages. These are the three things that everyone wants to know about. The Market Reports, of course, come from Altos.

This past week, I added separate neighborhood-specific pages to my blog. [ed: here's The Fenway, for example.] These pages have blog entries devoted to each major Boston neighborhood. The idea is, visitors to my site will start on the main blog page, then click through to read more about specific neighborhoods.

I have an AltosChart on each of these neighborhood- specific pages, set up to show market data just for that neighborhood, by ZIP code. Probably some time in the near future, I'll be adding a link on these pages to each neighborhood's Altos market report (using each neighborhood's ZIP code).

I'm also about to set up an MLS search, preset by neighborhood, showing just listings in that specific neighborhood.

I expect this to have great results. The majority of visitors will continue to begin their visit on my main page, but then they will want to visit the page focused on just their neighborhood(s) of interest. By having the MLS search and AltosCharts on each neighborhood's page, I'm providing visitors with useful information.

How Strong the Call-To-Action?
It's an open question as to how much information and data to provide to everyone - whether or not to have the Altos Research reports available to everyone, or whether I should force visitors to contact me for access to the reports (a "call to action", it's called).

Certainly, by making people contact me, I'm creating a two-way relationship - it encourages communication, which, hopefully, would lead to new business.

However, I also believe in making as much information as possible available to as many people as possible.

Most people visit my website multiple times, over a period of days, weeks, and/or months prior to contacting me to be their real estate agent. They already know me quite well from my blog, before they make an inquiry. So, there may be little to lose by having the reports readily available to the casual visitor.

Each week, I upload all the updated reports (by neighborhood and city-wide) to my servers. I receive reports for eleven ZIP codes, which covers the majority of the "downtown Boston" market.

There are actually 29 ZIP codes in the city of Boston, and I've considered getting reports for each of them. I would like to be "complete", even though I don't handle real estate sales in the other neighborhoods. This would increase traffic to my site, which would increase my exposure to potential clients and make me seen as the expert in ALL of Boston.

Measuring My Return on Investment
I think the cost of the reports is easily justified. First, I enjoy reading the reports, myself. It presents data in ways I don't collect, myself. As well, it provides useful information to my existing clients. And, it provides useful information to potential clients.

Again, it makes me become known as an "expert" in Boston real estate - as the primary source for data and information on the Boston real estate market.

As of now, only a couple of other Boston real estate agents offer the Altos Research reports, which is fine by me, but I expect more agents to begin offering the reports to clients, which will increase competition. I'm glad I'm doing it, first.

Damned Lies and Median Home Prices

nospam@example.com (Mike Simonsen) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:39:17 -0700

The bubble is bursting all around us and the National Association of Realtors comes out with a report that San Francisco Bay Area median home prices increased by 13% in the second quarter. Nooooo, can it be? If you can't trust NAR, who can you trust?

Stephen Bedikian of RealIQ has a nice piece today over at Inman News sorting through the confusion. He cites some Altos numbers to help make sense of the turmoil. Stephen concludes:

So what actually happened? Sales transactions increased with a greater proportion on the high end versus the previous quarter. There appears to have been little actual appreciation as evidenced by the Case Shiller and OFHEO numbers, while inventory increased and prices of many listed properties were reduced. So next time you read that median house prices have increased in your area, don't celebrate prematurely. Conduct more research before you reach a conclusion about market conditions in your area.

In addition to Stephen's suggestion of diversifying your stats, I'll add that if you're not looking local, you're not looking anywhere. The Bay Area market? Are you kidding? This spring, you could indeed watch a few key markets, like Palo Alto and up the Peninsula stay strong. But look even a few miles inland, say Antioch, and the carnage was everywhere.

To be fair to NAR, we reported the same trends for some of those parts of the Bay Area in February, March, and April. We also noted that by May, the Spring price growth had already begun to recede. (Notably correlated, by the way, with the widening spreads on jumbo mortgages that started at that time. Surprise! The high-end starts to fade when fat mortgages get more expensive.) So here we are five months later and NAR is telling you that San Francisco had a strong spring. Thanks guys.

[ps. sorry about the long hiatus from the blogosphere. Hope you've been enjoying Scott's posts on real estate e-marketing tactics. Our plan is to intersperse both topics together. Thanks to Stephen for getting me off my ass and posting. I like his work, we'll have to do more together in the future.]