declining inventory on urbandigs

"Investors destroy markets. It would be to everyones' benefit if they do not buy."

"Nonsense. Investors provide rental units for those who want to rent."

you cannot conflate "investors" and "speculators".

"the rest of the country has a huge increase in sales and most of those sales are from foreclosures or short sales. this is the reason why sales are up while the prices are still dropping or stabilizing. i've been looking for a good short sale or foreclosure for past 6 mos and there are none in good locations. Bushwich, Bed Sty, East New York, Jamaica, Cypress Hill and the like were overpriced like Vegas and will crash and fall. any good neighborhood will not see high foreclosure rates that will drag the market down like in other parts of the country."

I largely agree except for the final statement: The good neighborhoods went later, but they went. And what has to happen for the banks to "crack" is a critical mass of defaults: when there are a minor amount of them in an area, the banks let them go through a 'normal" foreclosure process, bid their entire lien at the foreclosure auction, take the property as REO and then sell it as best they can. but all that changes as volume increases: the banks can not hold large amounts of REO properties on their books so they will get rid of them in many different ways. Some will sell off very large packages of bad paper (I'm not sure how this will work this time around with much more of the paper being part of some sort of collateralized mortgage obligations pools). Some will develop short sale programs (this is 100% for sure given the unprecedented government involvement insuring it). Some will press for mortgage "restatements" (again, gov't backed). And some will bid way down on their debt at the foreclosure sales to incentives investors / purchasers to take the properties so that the bank doesn't handle them as REO.

"im not too worried about resets..most ARMs will reset lower. Im more concerned about recast schedule upcoming. That will be the payment shock"

While I 100% agree with this statement, I also think this is the area most likely to be "negotiated" into new deals between the lender and borrower (again because of gov't pressure and incentives)

"Keep dreaming that this is a sign of stability. At every new price level and in every 'active' spring season there will be some transactions. Like another poster above, I can't wait to see the latest marks. -25% was an argument a few weeks ago and now Corcoran brokers admit apartments don't move for more that -30%. We're in a fast slide and condos are the next stubborn shoe with their $1500 asks."

One thing which is constantly left out of these discussions is buyer and seller irrational decisions ruling most markets. Clearly there was an awful lot of irrational buying on the way up. One thing which happens on the way down (every time) is that there are people who have wanted to purchase for "X" amount of time, but couldn't or didn't because prices were too high. So they sat on the sidelines waiting for prices to come down "Y%". As soon as that happens, they jump in: it doesn't matter that prices are still on the way down - they made their decision in the past that they won't get 'priced out" again, so as soon as prices drop to so artificially chosen price point (each buyer having their own one, so at every single percentage point down, there's some new group which joins the fray).

Also, we seem to think that as markets go down, there "should be" ZERO sales, and when there are any, people jump up and say "See? Everything is fine; things are selling again!".

"Tell me a list of fundamentals that you see out there, that will converge to stabilize this market and prove the bottom is now in?

1. is jobs market getting stronger?
2. is there a positive wealth effect?
3. is the system of credit loose again, with appraisals showing time premiums for deals?
4. is RMBS securitization market all better again, allowing for e/z lending and loosening standards?
5. is all the distress out there finally liquidated, so if you dont have to sell, you can simply wait it out?
6. are monthly carrying charges for properties going lower, allowing for more affordability in open market transaction price?
7. are rents rising making property valuations more in line with historic norms?
8. are building financial conditions improving?
9. is this the only boom bust cycle that will not overshoot and instead see a 25% correction from peak to trough, because of a pickup in activity that is still the most sluggish for this time of year in the past 10 years? So, a 5-7 year boom cycle, and a 10 month correction cycle?
10. are taxes going down, encouraging business and investment and keeping costs to carry a property lower?
11. did all the excess from 2005-2007, especially new dev investors, purge already and get out of the system?
12. is wall street back again, ready to power the next housing boom?"

This is spot on: again, we saw a lot of irrational buying on the way up and forget a lot of it was fueled by the money spigot valve being turned on to full wide open. Id you bought a new refrigerator and threw the cardboard carton it came in out on Avenue D and 10th Street, not only did someone write "Condo for sale" on it, but some bank was willing to write the loan.

the only thing I disagree with is: "is this the only boom bust cycle that will not overshoot and instead see a 25% correction from peak to trough, because of a pickup in activity that is still the most sluggish for this time of year in the past 10 years? So, a 5-7 year boom cycle, and a 10 month correction cycle?".. NOT the spirit of what was said (since I think I said something like this to Noah about a week ago myself), but the numbers: classically we've seen boom and bust cycles of 5-7 years, but this last cycle was virtually unprecedented in NYC RE: the boom cycle lasted about 15 years, which is about 3 times as long as the average. while i haven't run any numbers to see what the standard deviation off that 5 year average is, I'd bet if someone did they would see how far out in the tail 15 years is.

alpine292 & Rhino,

You're both of a couple of bigots (and at least Alpine292 knows it, Rhino, your comments are actually scarier than alpine's). There are many intelligent women and people of color who read and contribute to this website. We live in the 21st Century. Alpine, you may blame the "PC" movement, but the truth it that in 2009 it's no longer acceptable to act like an ignorant ass-wipe.

In case you'd like to put me in a box too, I'm a rich white lady with African American relatives, who lives in Manhattan and plans on sending her white kids to NYC public schools.

"can somebody help me here with twocities? "

Yes: "“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” - Robert Heinlein

REO, these are all great points. I just want to ask you about one thing. You say, "While I 100% agree with this statement, I also think this is the area most likely to be "negotiated" into new deals between the lender and borrower (again because of gov't pressure and incentives)." So far, this doesn't appear to be happening. For example, NPR Planet Money posits that banks and mortgage servicers are betting that they can simply ride this out, and that therefore they do NOT have to renegotiate with mortgage holders in dire straits. They can just keep waiting it out, because it's actually cheaper for them. I'm getting my info from here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/05/hear_your_future_mortgage.html

However, you are in the industry; can I ask why you think banks will suddenly start dealing with the problem rather than simply pretending it doesn't exist?

"Here we go. Price to square foot was $300 in 1996. $1000/ft in 2005, which is where it "asks" now and doesn't get.

http://www.urbandigs.com/2006/03/price_per_squar.html"

The biggest problem using this data is that the MIX of units sold in those two years was so different, and the PPSF was so different between properties types that way too large a percentage of the change could be reflective of property mix rather than price change.

financeguy:"12x annual rents is too high for a "normal" market: it means that ......."

Ditto.

financeguy:"Lowery:

Markets are irrational and inefficient, so predictions are always reckless. Still..."

Again.

"This $1.5 million classic 6 that just went under contract is on 95th St. So classic sixes below 86th for $1.5 million are definitely not in the foreseeeable future."

Not big Classic 6, but a "real" on never-the-lees
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/412362-coop-505-west-end-avenue-upper-west-side-new-york .

Not trying to argue that this means Classic 6's ARE $1.5 million now, but certainly some evidence that you can't outright state that they won't in the foreseeable future. (or were you talking East side only? In which case I give you http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/404253-coop-129-east-82nd-street-upper-east-side-new-york - yes, high maintenance, but... see above)

"Rhino86 - if an apartment in a small building like this was 50% off would you buy it? I wouldn't and here's why. I don't want to pay my neighbor's maintenance expense.
You now have several neighbors whose cost basis is $1,000/ft and your sale gives them a new comp of $500/ft. Accordingly they are way underwater. Most in the building probably put 10% down - so let's assume they paid $1,000,000 for 1,000 sqft and put $100,000 down. I'll assume that most buyers in Harlem are younger than 40 and that they don't have much more cash/wealth other than their down payments because if they did they would buy in a better, more established neighborhood. I would, however, think they have stable employment with decent income (although in today's market I'd suggest that many in the building now wouldn't qualify for the same loan they used to buy their apartment just a year ago).
Now, if you make say $200K and were the buyer at $1M. Now your place is worth $500K would you continue to pay your mortgage? NO WAY. You walk. You lose your $100,000 and monthly carrying costs and closing costs, but you no longer own a condo at $1M that's only worth $500K. Do you know how long you'd be making payments until you finally got above water? You walk, let the place foreclose and move on with your life. Plenty of great rental apartments out there, you still make $200K/year and you start saving cash again. Heck you may even stop paying your mortgage and live rent free in the place for a year or so. In 3 or 4 years you could have plenty of cash saved up and could buy back your same apartment for $550,000.
I don't want to own in a building where all/most of my neighbors have costs basis 100% above current market value."

While I agree with this in terms of new Condos (and I'm pretty sure I've stated similar things here already), this is absolutely not the case in most Coops. And I think the perception that Manhattan has somehow become "mostly Condos" (to the extent that this is implied or actually believed) is skewed due to (almost) all new construction being Condo rather than coop, and in new construction you sell 100% of the units in the building (or at least that is the goal) whereas in a Coop it takes decades to get 100% turnover (in addition to there being substantially more initial equity in the average coop purchase than the average Condo purchase), and the fact that Coop maintenance is senior to share loans whereas Condo Common Charges are junior to first mortgages.

"However, you are in the industry; can I ask why you think banks will suddenly start dealing with the problem rather than simply pretending it doesn't exist? "

This is going to sound trite, and I apologize, but it's the simplest way to put it: because it's what always happens to anyone who is in denial. the cancer patient who won't get chemo eventually dies, the couple trying to keep it together for the sake of the kids eventually gets divorced, the wife who gets beaten eventually ends up in the hospital and is forced to acknowledge her battery, the alcoholic wakes up next to a dumpster and doesn't even know where he is, etc.

I didn't have time to listen to the 22 minute podcast, and there wasn't a lot written, so I'll take your word for the fact that this is occurring (as well as my own antennae are receiving the same signal), but I will point out something of interest: did you read the blurb below it:
"- In the U.S., 6 million homeowners are flirting with foreclosure. NPR's Chris Arnold reports that in half those cases, foreclosure appears to benefit no one involved -- not the families and not the banks. With Alex Blumberg, he visits one loan servicer, Ocwen, that reworks 75 percent of its troubled mortgages, as opposed to the industry average of 10 percent. (Chris and Alex produced a segment about this for This American Life.)"?

I don't remember the exact year, but in the 90's Citigroup sold a HUGE portfolio of bad paper to.... guess who? Ocwen. I personally was working almost 24/7 for a number of weeks because I have to price out about 4,000 units for Ocwen when they were formulating their offer on that package. So, what happens is that bankers make loans and expect people to pay them or get foreclosed on, etc. And people who aren't the one's who made the loans and aren't 'emotionally involved - corporate version' are doing about as close to 180 degrees opposite.

Also, what I did hear about in that podcast - if you listen closely - it's not so much that the banks aren't unwilling to do anything; they are just overwhelmed by the volume of people requesting recasts and haven't "ramped up" the ability to get it done. I also heard in the podcast the mention that the Banks/servicers just haven't got the "infrastructure' yet to be able to recast these loans, which says basically the same thing.

Interesting, REO. I know it's long; I like to listen to it at work when I'm doing boring tasky stuff, since it makes the time go by. If you listen to the whole podcast, they get into the theory that banks might be overwhelmed, but that they are also just waiting for the market to turn around - and expecting another bailout if that doesn't happen. So since they hold all the cards (channeling Aboutready, my theme is that these huge banks are holding the US economy hostage, and that dealing judiciously with their bad debt and allowing smaller, smarter regional banks who did not load up on toxic assets to expand would clear the market with less long-term damage to the national and global economy) - there IS no reason for them to deal with the mortgage holders, even if it appears at first blush that foreclosure helps no one.

Anyhoodle, worth a listen when you have a chance!

30yrs, I agree with your above statments on the RE market in NYC. So what are you saying? Where do you think the per sqft will bottom out and how long will it take to get there? The RE market rallied like crazy over the last 7 years and it just doesn't make sense to me. 30yr, During which years would you say the RE prices increased the steepest? Like all irrational exubrance markets, it will ultimately return to its normal rate of growth, which means that the RE in NYC will have much more to go on the down side. The tech rally ended in March 2000 and did not bottom out until November02, so it took 2.5 yrs to bottom. The equity market is more liquid than the RE market, so i expect the RE to take much longer. I expct the RE in NYC will bottom in about at least 3.5yrs to 5yrs and a 50-60% lower from the peak sqft. What do you think 30yrs?

30yrs...
Here we go. Price to square foot was $300 in 1996. $1000/ft in 2005, which is where it "asks" now and doesn't get.

What year did the price/sqft peaked and at what price/sqft?

OK, scratch that - I did end up listening to the entire podcast (up until it shifted to firetrucks), and I'm pretty sure they ended up saying the exact same thing I just did above.

OH, BTW, I also worked with OCWEN after they bought the package, selling the units that they did end up foreclosing on. After going through about ?70%? of the loans, they figured they had "worked" them about as well as they could and sold off the last bunch in MUCH smaller packages to other servicers of distressed properties.

the trillion dollar question is when in the hell do they get around to doing something about loan mods? when 50% of the foreclosures have gone through the system? 75%? right now the banks' balance sheets are so tenuous and their need for capital so great that they'd prefer to have a dud of a loan on the books for as long as possible than reduce its value in any manner. also, the second mortgage issue isn't helping them any. the government doesn't really seem to be interested in aiding the homeowners in any substantial manner, largely because in today's case the underwriting standards were so lax that many of those being foreclosed upon can't, under any reasonable modification program, afford their homes. and to parrot evnyc's comment, the government seems oddly convinced that if they can just postpone some pain, asset values will float back up. i just don't see them doing anything, although i have to confess that i'm perplexed as can be because i can't see them continuing this way and doing nothing as well.

"but that they are also just waiting for the market to turn around - and expecting another bailout if that doesn't happen. So since they hold all the cards (channeling Aboutready, my theme is that these huge banks are holding the US economy hostage, and that dealing judiciously with their bad debt and allowing smaller, smarter regional banks who did not load up on toxic assets to expand would clear the market with less long-term damage to the national and global economy) - there IS no reason for them to deal with the mortgage holders, even if it appears at first blush that foreclosure helps no one."

here is where the current administration REALLY screwed the pooch: the banks THINK they can hold the economy hostage, but the hostage is toxic. Giving them $780B was pissing it away because they made the classic poker player's blunder, they pushed their chips in too soon (the feds). they did it when the banks were whining that if they didn't do it, they would take their balls and leave the playing field. They SHOULD have waited till they were on their knees and gotten SOMETHING back: all thy ended up doing was pissing away the 780 (remember, the concept behind lending the/giving the 780 was to restore liquidity to the system, but the banks took it and didn't end up making any more home loans - if you want to see where it actually went there's plenty of places to go look it up).

The banks aren't going to be pressured by the Fed to do things - they will get pressured by the bond holders who get fed up enough to starts enough suits to bring the banks to their knees - remember every payment that is not made to a servicer represents a payment that is not made in pass through to bond holders. Those banks which are making payments, even if reduced, to the bond holders are going to be able to negotiate a bit with them. The banks who are not making deals with borrowers and thus not collecting payments are going to end up having to answer to the bondholders, who aren't going to be as interested as the fed is in keeping those banks a float. And they can expect another bailout all they want, but didn't Obama just say "we're out of money"? So where's the next bailout going to come from? Printing more money? Is it really Wiemar Republic time already?

What will happen is one of a couple of things: the fed will bail them out again, which will be another colossal mistake, just like the first one and the "moratorium" on foreclosures. The borrowers will stop making payments and the bond holder will start going after the banks. The banks will start foreclosing in large amounts, losing way more money than they would have if they had recast loans till they realize that fact and start recasting them.

"Where do you think the per sqft will bottom out and how long will it take to get there?"

I hate using $PSF as a measure for anything because SF are not fungible and the mix of what gets sold effects it way too much for it to be a useful metric. As far as how long it will take to get there, it all depends on how stupid the Fed Gov't is in trying to Sisyphus this thing: the longer they stay at it, the longer it will take, and that is what will effect that time frame more than anything else.

"The tech rally ended in March 2000 and did not bottom out until November02, so it took 2.5 yrs to bottom. The equity market is more liquid than the RE market, so i expect the RE to take much longer."

Last time the stock market crashed in 1987 and the RE market (in Manhattan) bottomed in 1992: exactly twice as long, so your logic appears spot on in those two cases.

"The RE market rallied like crazy over the last 7 years and it just doesn't make sense to me. 30yr, During which years would you say the RE prices increased the steepest?"

I'm not really sure, since I've seen a lot of conflicting info. My gut tells me from 1992 to 1994 for certain property types at least since they went from totally unsellable and basically being given away to being sold in some sort of actual "market". My memory from reading the array of publicly available chartism by major indices I think was 2004 to 2006 (which is really bad since that indicates an acceleration of irrationality after the point where the market "should have" turned downwards: in other words it's extremely "bubble-ish" behaviour).

"30yrs...
Here we go. Price to square foot was $300 in 1996. $1000/ft in 2005, which is where it "asks" now and doesn't get.

What year did the price/sqft peaked and at what price/sqft?"

Again, I'm just not big on using that metric so you'll have to excuse me for not answering the question. My guess is that "prices' peaked somewhere 2007 - 2008 (you still saw some strangely high transaction into last year).

"the government seems oddly convinced that if they can just postpone some pain, asset values will float back up. i just don't see them doing anything, although i have to confess that i'm perplexed as can be because i can't see them continuing this way and doing nothing as well."

Why is this a mystery: it's the same thing they have done with every other issue for the past ... what? 40 years? Social Security?

"the trillion dollar question is when in the hell do they get around to doing something about loan mods? when 50% of the foreclosures have gone through the system? 75%? right now the banks' balance sheets are so tenuous and their need for capital so great that they'd prefer to have a dud of a loan on the books for as long as possible than reduce its value in any manner."

Take a look at the tough lesson the Japanese learned last time around doing the exact same thing.

"I expct the RE in NYC will bottom in about at least 3.5yrs to 5yrs and a 50-60% lower from the peak sqft. What do you think 30yrs?"

I'm not really sure. But at the current time I would want to be betting money the the decline will stop at 50% off peak. Unless someone can show me some math which shows some concrete number that there exist some sort of real "price support" at that level, and add to that my thoughts that the RE market always overshoots that number anyway.

Inventory has now DROPPED BELOW 11000
But check
http://www.urbandigs.com/charts3.html
The big story is the dramatic and rapid decline in new listings, AND the equally dramatic decline in contracts signed

Either, we are again being fed bad data due to some quirk or people are taking properties off the market and nothing is still selling....very different picture from a few days ago when contracts signed had a rising trend.
Likely the memorial day weekend accounting crash...........

30yrs, Thanks for your reply, I am very interested in picking your brain. I understand that price per sqft will vary for different building and areas. If price/sqft is not a good measure, what would be a good metric? How should I be looking at it?

My feeling is that the NYC RE market will have a difficult time coming back or making new highs.. too much inventory/shadow inventory. The foreigners and financial bank's employees are not going to be buyers of the NYC RE market. I don't know what the percentage they made up during the booming years. But Europe will be performing worst than the US for years to come and as long as the dollar vs EUR continue to be below the peak, I doubt the foreign buyers will come in. Asians may be buyers if the dollar gets weaker. As for the financial employed buyers, they are suffering from low bonuses and uncertainties in the industry. The top players in the financials already have houses or apt, so they are not buying. The average employee compensation has been slashed quite significantly and can longer be a viable player in the market. I have been looking at the UWS and haven't seen anything worth buying. 1300 sqft apts are still too small if you have kids. I am thinking about moving to Long Island... If I can buy a 1800sqft for under 1mm, I may consider staying in NYC. What is your opinion on under 1mm for 1800sqft. Thanks....

One of my major concern is inflation. With the government printing money at a rapid rate, what is your views on inflation versus nyc housing prices? If the dollar devalues significantly, I think the foreign buyers will be back. A modest increase in rates will have a negative impact on RE prices but I am not how high inflation will impact housing prices. What are your views?

Firstly, I agree with a lot of your logic. However, as I keep saying, using logic to predict the behavior of buyers of RE is often a dicey proposition, since most buyers act irrationally for their purchases. So, for example, I'm not sure how long it will take foreign buyers who felt the got burned on NY RE to jump back in even if exchange rates make it seem possible. A cat sits on a hot stove, it never sits on a hot stove again. it doesn't sit on cold stoves, either. In fact, it avoids the kitchen entirely. Name all the major acquisitions of major NY properties by Japanese in the latest boom.

The thing about inflation is that the US Fed Gov't has been so over obsessed with keeping inflation down is that I think they would bury the entire economy blindly if they thought what they were doing would keep inflation down. i think one reason is that inflation hurts the two currently most powerful groups in the country - AARP and the very wealthy (assets not income).

I guess I have to ask which 1800SF you are talking about? Real 1800Sf or Broker 1800SF? Are you asking about a "normal" sized Classic 6 in a "solid B" building? I'll give you a slippery answer: I think if you are willing to be very flexible and buy based on price/seller desperation / etc. and not on finding your dream apartment and then getting THAT apartment at the price you want (i.e. buy MOSTLY based on "how good a deal you are getting" vs. "buying the apartment you like the best"), then i think there is a reasonably good chance that within the next couple of years you will be able to find some Classic 6 in some "solid B" building for 6 figures. (like in 885 or 895 WEA; and I don't mean that sucky C line in 885; I wish I could find a link to the reno I did in the 885 B line so you could see what that looked like - turned it into a real 3 BR/2.5 ba - actually 3 full ba, but the third was a maids, so even though it had a sink, toilet and shower, I don't want to call it a "full" bath due to it's size; but is was perfect for a guest room, which it was suited into but -and here's the key - it was on the "BR's hallway", not through the kitchen)

joedavis, it will be very interesting to look at price drops over the next few weeks.

You know, even at the "peak" of the market, Manhattan sales were EXTREMELY seasonal. Historically, the selling season was end of Feb thru end of May, then Sept thru mid Nov. But as the financial industry and related businesses became more and more the driving force behind purchases, things changed (probably some time in the mid 90's). The analogy I have used for over a decade is that the selling season is like an hourglass with the bonus pool as the sand. You turn the hour glass over some time in mid December (for those who were willing to buy when they just heard what their bonus was going to be) and as the sand ran out, so did the buyers. This meant that the first half of the year was the selling season and then it was pretty dead the rest of the year.

I remember back in 2005 (clearly still in the frenzy) a client wanted to put his loft at 35 Wooster on the market in July. I told him I thought it was a bad idea because no one was going to buy it anyway, and he'd end up with a "stale" listing when the boom of new bonus baby buyers got hatched. well, it sat and sat until December, when we got multiple bids and it sold for slightly more than the floor above sold for which had gone to contract shortly before my owner put his on the market. I am still convinced that if he had waited till January '05.

The one wild card this year is that it is possible that (using the same hourglass analogy) due to the economic climate and hesitancy to purchase RE as a result, that the aperture of the hourglass got constricted, the flow reduced, leaving a lot of "sand" still left in the upper portion and thus a lot more money still waiting to be spent available to do second half transactions than had previously occurred.

Looking closely at the tabulated numbers vs the charts on Urbandigs, I think that the numbers /charts have inconsistencies and so I am not sure we can draw any clear conclusions here.
Check price reductions -- graph vs table: they match
All other entries do not match -- the 1 day numbers in the table are a factor of 5 to 10 off the ones in the plot
It is is possible that I need to read the fine print somewhere and then understand that the plot or the table reflect some sort of aggregation or moving window sum for each day and the plot is an instantaneous value -- but this does not make sense. You would think that the same info is presented in each.
The relative ratio of new listings to contracts in the 2 is close, so I suspect something like this is happening. However, the price reductions match, so at the very least there is a lack of consistency in the way the data is being presented.
The inventory numbers do not match -- they seem to be lagged across the table and charts -- I have noticed this for a long time.
UD -- any explanations?

Joedavis -- Someone asked a similar question on the "talk real estate" tab of urban digs. Noah replied that he had some questions too and was going to redo the charting as part of his new venture.
Until then I agree with you that we shouldn't put too much stock in those numbers.
I've also noticed that the charts aren't self consistant when you toggle between time ranges. Looking now at the 1 month new listings it appears it was at 80 a month ago but when you toggle to 3 months it hasn't been at 80 since late March.

although i will note that the numbers tend to underestimate the new listings, not overestimate them. i was wondering if his widget which eliminates repeat listings is somehow weeding out those which have been delisted and then relisted. it seems as though that could explain the difference.

JoeDavis - price cuts, new listings and contract signed charts are a weekly moving average. Im not crazy about chart system, and I am very close to leaving and starting development on UD 2.0. I need more data and I need a much better analytical system. I need to get E 94th in contract and then I am OUT and will start my endeavor!

I cant wait. I want to do this so badly, for so long, but I have obligations to my seller clients. My hope and mission is to make the system much much better for you guys. Im hoping for a Fall launch.

aboutready -- sorry, I'm not following. Can you try to re-explain what you think might be happening?

aboutready -- interesting point. Regardless of what he does with the numbers we should see the same processed numbers in the table and the chart. If one gives raw and the other processed numbers then your conjecture may be on target. But that would be a rather poor presentation strategy to begin with.

meme, a couple of weeks ago UD listed 1 new listing. so it was easy to do a comparison. SE showed 5 new listings for the same day. 4 of those had been listed before, delisted, and then relisted. I just wonder if the UD widget that removes duplicates viewed those as units already listed.

joedavis, i'll confess i've never been able to figure out those charts. at all. was feeling a bit thick about the issue, but looked at them ten ways up and down and gave up. have only used the tables, which i have also thought were off, but they are remarkably consistent with the Miller/Samuel numbers so i gave that a pass as well. as long as the numbers are flawed consistently they are useful for ongoing comparison.

UD is working on a whole new analytical system. don't mean to speak for him here, but i think he hopes to get it up by fall.

UD, missed your post above. somehow started with MeMe's.

I think the guy that developed the chart has some algorithms wrong or something. It makes no sense to pay money to fix it when Im not happy with his work. I look mostly at table too, and mostly inventory data. I rarely talk about other data. I hope to fix all this, but I have to get E 94th in contract first, so I can leave Halstead, be my own brokerage, be member of REBNY, and make a relationship with data providers to start the whole project. I can do any of this until I leave. Trust me, i tried!

I'm curious Noah, do the owners of E 94th have any misgivings about being your last client? I think I might be a little on edge if it were me. For example, if you brought me an offer significantly below ask and said something about the market moving lower every day I'd think "he just wants me to accept anything so he can get out". I'm not accusing you of this, just wondering about the sellers mindset.

nope not at all. I understand where you are coming from, but no, he doesnt think that way. IN the end the market dictates value, not the brokers or my writings on urbandigs.

So true Noah. I have cousins going through a sale process, thinking a lot about how to price their apartment. In the end, you "ask" and the market tells you. As we know for a period of time the market even had no problem telling you, "too low".

thats why my E 87 sold so quickly, and over ask. The market has spoken.

Honestly I think the only way to price is below in this market to gain scant attention. My cousins are stuck on their 2005 cost basis (purchase plus renovations)... Meanwhile they made plenty of money on the place they sold to buy their latest one. I don't think they can come close to their cost.

UD -- I'll be happy to help you design the algorithm and features for UD 2.0. You'll need someone to do the actual programming since I don't have time for that. However, I'll be happy to provide ideas and math skills for the computations needed, as well as the visual presentation.
If interested please write me at harlemhouse@mail.com

What a great offer! Kudos to you joedavis!!!

i will email you JoeDavis...thanks..now I remember why these forums are so great.

Noah,

I'd be interested in talking with you about the new thing: my CV includes BS and MEng in Operations Research from Cornell, the (obvious) 30 yrs in RE, 5 years with Andersen Consulting, and my current biz outside of RE is 'net stuff. I was actually getting ready to begin a new complimentary project that I've been setting up meetings with some of my contacts at the larger firms about.

Kumbaya my Digs, kumbaya JoeD, kumbaya 30yr, kumbaya...wow this trade is getting crowded.

30yrs... that makes you 60 yrs old

Noah, I was just on UD and saw your new article on mortgage and 30yr treasury. I went very very long tlt at 90.5 two days ago and sold it at 94 today... still short equity, how much more do you think the equity mkt will rally?

"30yrs... that makes you 60 yrs old"

No, it would make me 57 (but I didn't say that there wasn't any overlap; I started buying RE when I was at Cornell, and both the 30 and 20 figures are exaggerated by about a year or 2 each, so sue me - technically my handle should be 29yrs_RE_18_in_REO but I took a little artistic license. Plus I skipped 7th grade).