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news
Joined: 14 Jul 2007
Posts: 0
Location: Greater Boston
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admin
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 1826
Location: Greater Boston
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 Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:21 pm GMT Post subject: |
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First of all, it should be noted that Google News labeled this article as a press release, even though there isn't an apparent indication on the dBusinessNews site that it is. You can judge for yourself from the content. I wanted to add some more bullish content for posterity from this year's crop of bottom callers.
I was amazed that we're still seeing this pitch trotted out:
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The HouseSavvy Research Department analysis of the Greater Boston real estate market in March shows a 29% increase in month-to-month sales over last month’s numbers, which also had the first month-to-month gain in nine months. Coupled with a 17.5% month-to-month drop in the supply of unsold listings, these are strong indicators of a market poised for continued growth.
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Month-to-month increases happen practically every spring. It did not signal a bottom in 2006. It did not signal a bottom in 2007. It did not signal a bottom in 2008. Why would it signal a bottom now, and why would a "veteran real estate analyst" say as much?
I also found it ironic that the market is both "poised for continued growth" and showing "very strong indications of 'bottoming out'." What it is bottoming out from if growth has been continuous?
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:54 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Yup. When the YOY numbers are bad, just quote MOM!
This works well in the spring, but poorly in the fall.
I do think the inventory situation is worth watching. Other bursting bubbles (Phoenix, LA, LV, and now NYC) are featuring escalating inventory, in some cases massively. Boston, by contrast, is down almost 25% YOY.
I understand sales are slow, but prices are only going to drop if we start seeing more places on the market. To this point, we have not. |
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Brian C
Joined: 13 Feb 2009
Posts: 98
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:36 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Typically I like to just discredit this info because it comes from a realtor but actually there's some interesting news when reading the detailed report.
Note the changes in prices from Dec to March:
Suffolk dropped 18%. Middlesex dropped 10%. Essex dropped 8%.
This was the most surprising part of the report.
Plymouth dropped 30% YOY ($412k Mar08 vs $285k Mar09)
Suffolk dropped 43% YOY ($535k Mar08 vs $304k Mar09) |
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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admin
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 1826
Location: Greater Boston
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:15 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| JCK wrote: |
Look at months supply; that figure has been dropping. I think that explains something. If this number does not tick upwards, I don't think we'll see much in the way of price drops. |
Months of supply appears to have been dropping because the number of MLS listings is down a lot, enough to make up for the year-over-year decline in sales which would have otherwise pushed up months of supply. What this says to me is that there either aren't a lot of people who have to sell (yet), or those who have to sell aren't doing so through MLS. These numbers only cover MLS listings and sales. Therefore, I don't think that they include foreclosures - the ultimate "have to sell" class of properties. I wouldn't buy that months of inventory is down year over year without accounting for foreclosures first. (Comparing months of inventory in anything other than a year over year manner isn't useful.)
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:45 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| admin wrote: | | JCK wrote: |
Look at months supply; that figure has been dropping. I think that explains something. If this number does not tick upwards, I don't think we'll see much in the way of price drops. |
Months of supply appears to have been dropping because the number of MLS listings is down a lot, enough to make up for the year-over-year decline in sales which would have otherwise pushed up months of supply. What this says to me is that there either aren't a lot of people who have to sell (yet), or those who have to sell aren't doing so through MLS. These numbers only cover MLS listings and sales. Therefore, I don't think that they include foreclosures - the ultimate "have to sell" class of properties. I wouldn't buy that months of inventory is down year over year without accounting for foreclosures first. (Comparing months of inventory in anything other than a year over year manner isn't useful.)
- admin |
Ahhh, yes. Shadow inventory. Is there any proof that such shadow inventory exists?
I'm not seeing very many foreclosures in the types of property typically being discussed on this board. If you're in the market for a triple-decker in Lynn, you might be more concerned.
You can (crudely) track these properties at the registry of deeds, and some appear on Trulia.
Newton, for example, appears to have eight properties, per Trulia.
http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/foreclosure_lt/Newton,MA/
335 total listings appear on Trulia for Newton.
My conclusion: there isn't a huge number of foreclosures and certainly not enough to make me concerned about using the MLS service as basis for approximating inventory.
We're not NYC or Vegas or Miami with a gazillion condo projects still under construction that will hit the market. |
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admin
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 1826
Location: Greater Boston
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:04 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| JCK wrote: |
Ahhh, yes. Shadow inventory. Is there any proof that such shadow inventory exists?
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Sure, and I don't think it's that shadowy either. Compare the monthly foreclosure stats from the registry of deeds with the sales reported on the HouseSavvy website. The number of foreclosures are of a large enough order of magnitude to affect sales statistics which exclude them. For example, The Middlesex North Registry of Deeds reported 49 foreclosure deeds in January (the most recent month were I was able to quickly find the stat). Just as a back of the envelope calculation... 49 times 2 (assuming there are 2 registries in the county), times 3 for the number of months covered by HouseSavvy, yields around 300 foreclosures for the county in Q1 2009. HouseSavvy reported 749 sales for Q1 2009. 300 foreclosures seems more than big enough to make a difference to me. Obviously, 300 is unlikely to be exact, I'm just demonstrating that there is a reasonable chance that the order of magnitude is on par with sales.
| JCK wrote: |
I'm not seeing very many foreclosures in the types of property typically being discussed on this board. If you're in the market for a triple-decker in Lynn, you might be more concerned.
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No argument there. However, the HouseSavvy stats were not limited to properties typically discussed on this board either.
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:11 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Fair enough. I think if you segregate out foreclosures by geography (i.e., not worry about the foreclosures in Lowell, for example), they aren't having a huge market impact, at least in the segments that I'm interested in.
But I agree (based on your calcs) that they might be skewing the Mos/inventory numbers. |
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Hard Rain
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:53 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Walter said the same thing at the beginning of 2007:
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We rate the market today - right now - as a moderate buyers’ market, which means there are more sellers than buyers, values are holding or slightly reducing and marketing time is slightly increased.
Six months ago, it was a real strong buyer’s market. Values were declining. It’s now moved up to a more moderate buyers’ market. There’s more sellers than buyers out there, but it looks like the price reductions have slowed down a lot, maybe even leveled out.
We are predicting that it will stay a moderate buyers’ market at least until the summer, and it may move to a balanced market where buyers and sellers are about equal."
Never trust a realtard..... |
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soldatthetop
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| Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:10 am GMT Post subject: This report is rediculous crap |
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Seriously... is this junk ever going to end?!?!?
Its ridiculous...
Just an FYI... you know I monitor Arlington, Belmont and Lexington pretty closely (as well as Winchester, Concord, Lincoln, Bedford, Medford, Watertown and Cambridge)... Looks like March was a no-show... Really low sale counts for single families.. I was thinking it might be a combo of the economy and the weather but looks like April is pretty slow too... and inventories appear to be easily breaching 2008 levels (compared YOY).
It will be interesting to see what the MAR/TWG report shows but it looks like things are very slow...
I'm thinking this thing has got to take us down to below the sale counts set in the 90s bust but on the other hand there has got to be more housing units (and population) today then back then... so we may already be below that level as a ratio of SF homes or Households or population... how ever you want to look at it. |
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Hard Rain
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| Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 9:00 am GMT Post subject: |
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"Just an FYI... you know I monitor Arlington, Belmont and Lexington pretty closely (as well as Winchester, Concord, Lincoln, Bedford, Medford, Watertown and Cambridge)... Looks like March was a no-show... Really low sale counts for single families"
Seeing the same in Newton, just ten sales (condos, land, singles) so far in April. Pricing is not encouraging either;
62 Hyde - sale price: $1,000,000
Assessment -$1,645,000
336 Dedham st - $600,000
Last sold in 2008 for $782,900 |
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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| Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:32 pm GMT Post subject: Re: This report is rediculous crap |
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| soldatthetop wrote: | Seriously... is this junk ever going to end?!?!?
Its ridiculous...
Just an FYI... you know I monitor Arlington, Belmont and Lexington pretty closely (as well as Winchester, Concord, Lincoln, Bedford, Medford, Watertown and Cambridge)... Looks like March was a no-show... Really low sale counts for single families.. I was thinking it might be a combo of the economy and the weather but looks like April is pretty slow too... and inventories appear to be easily breaching 2008 levels (compared YOY).
It will be interesting to see what the MAR/TWG report shows but it looks like things are very slow...
I'm thinking this thing has got to take us down to below the sale counts set in the 90s bust but on the other hand there has got to be more housing units (and population) today then back then... so we may already be below that level as a ratio of SF homes or Households or population... how ever you want to look at it. |
Interesting. If this holds through the summer (very low sales, plus stable or increasing inventory), then I would expect to start seeing price drops. |
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soldatthetop
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| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:23 am GMT Post subject: inventory |
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Well.. I think if you got 2006 inventory back prices would freaking collapse... That might just be too good indicating that its not going to happen but we can dream cant we?
Let's just hope that the inventory at least bests 2007... |
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JCK
Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 559
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| Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:46 pm GMT Post subject: Re: inventory |
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| soldatthetop wrote: | Well.. I think if you got 2006 inventory back prices would freaking collapse... That might just be too good indicating that its not going to happen but we can dream cant we?
Let's just hope that the inventory at least bests 2007... |
| soldatthetop wrote: | Well.. I think if you got 2006 inventory back prices would freaking collapse... That might just be too good indicating that its not going to happen but we can dream cant we?
Let's just hope that the inventory at least bests 2007... |
I think both prices AND inventory were inflated by the bubble. How many people decided to sell/upgrade during the boom who would have otherwise stayed put?
For an interesting comparison, look at the NYC market. Inventory is exploding there, and prices are dropping like a rock (down 20-30% or so from last summer), so I think your theory holds. Compared to Boston, NYC had a lot of new construction in recent years...
Then again, watching 3 BR apartments dropping from $1.8m to $1.4m may be dramatic, but it doesn't do me a whole lot of good (out my range in either case)! |
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