Noah great chart can you upate to Nov and go back a little further?

Wow, I didn't realize the inventory jump was THAT big.
It was a 4k in early 2008! We're more than double that!

Funny thing is, SteveF thinks thats good news!

I know - look at apts listed vs. contracts signed. It's scary... What do you think is going to happen in Q1/Q2 of 2010? Do you think we'll hit 12k of inventory?

A lot of the runup was undoubtedly due to people placing their apartments on the market out of fear. One of the reasons inventory has dropped so much since May is that some of those fears have been alleviated and people have pulled their listings. There was also a pretty strong flurry of actual sales activity given the adjusted pricing.

buster2056, I don't think we'll hit 12k. We may see inventory creep up slowly if the economy takes another big hit, but I'd guess we stay pretty flat or creep downward very slowly from here on out.

bjw2103 - it would be nice if you are right, but I'm not so sure... new listings are still outnumbering contracts signed by a substantial amount - that's not a good trend. On a less analytical note, I know several unemployed bankers who are still making payments on their apartments, but are looking to list in the upcoming year. I know a couple of people moving out of the city for jobs in other cities who are about to list, too. There's obviously talk about the supposedly strong upcoming bonus season, but I'm not so sure that will necessarily translate into enough purchases to suck up all of the excess inventory especially if these are not first-time buyers.

I've been interested to see that within the past two to three weeks two listings I've been watching have gone into contract. Both had only been on the mkt for a short time. It may just be that they were priced right (which I believe they were) but still--such quick movement has been rare in recent months.

dont have much time right now Stevef...sorry. I got a board package to get done and way backed up with clients and accuracy checks for my new data source. have 15 things I need to do to get to my programming team to get to next level of the project.

Ill try to get to it next week.

What's hillarious is that there several threads on this board in the last few months where SteveF rags on Noah, questions his credibility and analysis, and says he is biased... but as soon as Noah has something he likes, he's his best friend.

Personally, I think Noah has been pretty much spot on for years.

Keep up the good work, Noah.

There is no SteveF. The handle is simply an antagonist that someone created.

ok thx Noah

some make wine from water

some make shineola from...............

Life is transformative

thx nyc10022...will try!

"'ve been interested to see that within the past two to three weeks two listings I've been watching have gone into contract. Both had only been on the mkt for a short time."

the two apts I was interested in went into contract this week. both were on market 4 -5 weeks.

i heard (from a broker at an open house, so consider the source) that banks (namely shitibank) are now doing some loans in the $1-2mm range with only 20% down. another broker told me that the same bank had approved 101 W. 23rd street, that land lease frightshow, for 20% down mortgages, but conforming. i received, via UPS no less, an offer from Citi to do a cash-out refi on the upstate house.

don't know, but could be goosing things a bit.

If inventory crosses back under 9,000, and sales thaw, we could be back in a 9-10 month inventory. That would be quite the reversal. FWIW, aboutready, we also started receiving offers to refinance from Wells Fargo, Orange and TD Ameritrade pretty much every week or so since September.

maly, i get random offers as well. but this was the holder of my mortgage. delivering via UPS rather than standard mail. weird.

i think jonathan miller yesterday on curbed called for a slow increase of inventory over the next few months. i think if inventory dips (other than briefly for christmas, for example) that will encourage the developers to list more units. and homeowners as well. there's just too much in the shadows.

people may not have fear of global economic collapse, but there's plenty of personal fear. long-term un and underemployment at over 15% is no joke.

I agree, there are many more reasons for prices to go down. Instead of the fast and furious adjustment we had between October and June, it just looks like a very slow process with so much inventory seemingly under control.

i have inventory at 8921, not the streeteasy widget...different data source, direct with REBNY internal sharing system

noah, your data is more correct. but we don't have a history with your data, so it will be comparing apples to oranges for awhile. unless you're saying that your data should be consistent with J. Miller's, which we might not have real time info for, but we could use for trend comparison.

who wants to have an apartment on the market over Thanksgiving? a decline in inventory wouldn't surprise me in the slightest right now. a sustained decline through spring would surprise me quite a bit.

well we are in process of re-computing 15M+ status updates for over 190,000 records of data from listings over the past 5 years. With only one piece of hardware, it could take 6 weeks to do the computing. When we tweak each metric based on what to calculate as ACTIVE or not given the last update of the listing agent and how up to date the listing is, it takes an hour or 2 just to recompute for 3 years of backdata. Lots of stuff, but in the end, system will be built on a solid foundation

Wow! Noah, you're really building a better widget. It will be great to have better, solid factual knowledge.

that's cool. then we're talking apples to apples.

Interesting piece and chart

"If the torrid pace of sales of this past summer were to continue, the listing discount would decline sharply and prices would begin to rise. However, with unemployment and under-employment high and rising, and credit remaining tight, I suspect we will see a net gain in inventory over the next several quarters."

http://curbed.com/archives/2009/11/12/three_cents_worth_market_loss_is_your_gain.php

thanks buster, that's what i was referring to earlier. but i recalled several months, not several quarters. ah, age and memory loss.