Sellers, weep, buyers, rejoice

jason.you made my day.

I was already rejoicing, but this takes it up a notch.

Buyers should print copies of that factsheet and give to sellers and their brokers as housegifts when they view properties. It's rude to show up at a party empty-handed.

no alanhart, give it to the other open-house attendees. with loud commentary. but, lol, your etiquette reminder is a good one. it's so easy in trying times to let standards slip.

So what does this mean?
Transaction Trend: The number of transactions on a monthly basis has been increasing since November. March’s transactions are up 24% over February’s transactions

I'm not sure you can read much into the big picture numbers. What neighborhoods? Are the median and avg prices lower solely due to price drops or also due to the mix of what's being sold?

65% of the sales are under $1m, the market most likely to be aided by confomirming loan availability and lowest mortgage rates, the best performing part of the market. And YET 91% of all sales were at below asking, with the average being 19% below.

just compare that to earlier reports. the transactions are up because the prices are far lower, even for lower-priced units.

Oh, and the seasonality issue. January and February are usually dead.

Falling prices and low volume=further decline. In order for this decline to end we need to see higher volume with a sharp drop in prices, capitulation. Sellers need to be worn out and brokers too. I think we see this happen in Sept/Oct as the summer has virtually no activity.

cfranch, distress doesn't always wait for prime selling seasons.

> I think we see this happen in Sept/Oct

Given that we are TWO YEARS behind the nation and they're STILL declining, I think this got pulled directly out of someone's ass. SteveF?

Can someone explain to me what the excitement is all about?

Median sales price has decreased to $666,000 from $785,000
Average sales price decreased to $1,029,000 from $1,086,000
Discount from Last Asking Price stable at 9.7% from 9.5
Discount from Original Asking Price slight increase to 19% from 17%
Transactions sold at ask or above stable at 9%
Majority of transactions, 65%, are under $1Million
Median number of days on market to C/S since last ask stable at 55 days from 53 days

65% of transactions were under a million and the median sales have decreased from $785k to $666k? What if 55% of the transactions were under a million last period? I can't believe you people accept (and get excited about) data like this. You should be embarrassed. This data is the worst pile of shit I have seen on this site.

Yes, there is no decline. Stats are for losers. Buy now or be priced out forever!

You don't think 91% of properties going for an average of 19% below asking has any meaning?

Good try, JM. I aced statistics, and I think this data has alot to offer anyone who has been following the trends.

Aboutready, the fact that 91% of properties go for an average of 19% below asking has NO meaning whatsoever to me. What has a meaning to me is the last 2 or 3 sale price of the property. Too often i see someone selling a property for $1.5Mil in 2008 that he bought for $795 in 2006. Along the way he dropped the price about 30% to $1,050.000. Does that make the $1,050.000 a good price in 2009? Nope! Not in my book! To me, his property is worth $795K max and probably less if the market keep tanking.

asking prices should not be a major factor in determining price declines because the apt. could have just been drastically overpriced to begin with. The only data point that is 99% accurate is REPEAT sales of the SAME property (a la Case Shiller). Everything else is just background noise.

sledgehammer, I guess I'm also tying the info in with other info, like the stuff going down on the market movements with comps threads. but even as a stand alone statistic it has meaning in this market, if only in terms of momentum when compared to the past. statistics are a slippery beast, look at today's durable goods report if you want a fine example, or new home sales. there are so many ways to look at data, some meaningful, many not so much.

but your point is well taken, and I do understand what you're saying.

alpine, way to limit the data set. no, meaningful analysis can be done on many levels, although it gets harder as a market becomes less transparent.

From reading these posts I can see that there are many Trumps in-the-making on this site. Anyone here own the Carlton Sheets program?