There’s a big hoo-ha brewing over the December 2010 “increase” in home sales. Not to worry. It’s more of a “Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics” argument, than a true market change of any kind.
As you can see in the chart above, prices are still trailing along the bottom from the price in the red block of March 2009.
Volume for the 4th Quarter is higher than 2008 and lower than 2009. The December up is simply a correction for November down. That correction could simply be a matter of reportings vs actual closings OR it could simply be longer loan processing times throwing some November closings into December.
Don’t worry about the noise, but do worry that more home buyers seem to be overpaying for homes these days than they have been for a couple of years. There is no market trend that will cover up those kinds of mistakes.
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Required Disclosure: The Stats in the above chart are compiled be ARDELL and are NOT compiled, verified or posted by The Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Note: The primary variance in my numbers vs other reportings is that most count townhomes in Seattle but not elsewhere. I even that out by not counting townhomes at all.
I’m glad to see you linked back to your own blog, that’s what we are here for.
I happen to agree with you about people over paying for houses. A long time investor client was hot to buy over the holiday season. We’re talking about a guy who knows better, has over a dozen properties, and sold a bunch before the crash. He was hot to buy. It took me a couple of meetings to cool him out.
I posted this morning about the Housing Panic blogger who has a Buy, Buy, Buy advisory on his site. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm to buy in today’s market. I don’t get.
Hi David,
Glad you stopped by. Was just thinking about you and worried that I hadn’t seen you around over on The Bubble. Happy New Year!
I did my major 2010 wrap up piece on my blog because it was my 5th anniversary of blogging on January 1 when I wrote that. My 5th Year Anniversary on Rain City Guide will be on January 14th. Planning to expand on the concept of “how much to offer” and some basic valuation strategies. It’s a tough subject because it can be a taboo topic, but it’s clearly something people need to know more about.
Amazing how much noise there has been in the last two years, given prices really haven’t changed that much since my bottom call. You would think with all the news stories we would be under that bottom by now…but surprise…no news at all really. Lots of “same old, same old”.
Thanks for stopping by.
You changed my thinking about the Seattle Bubble. I agree there should be a big disclaimer on the Seattle Bubble that Tim works for redfin. Also you were correct that there should be a NWMLS rule that a blogger, that routinely promotes, or makes fun of, listed properties, and works for a member Brokerage should be held to Multiple Listing rules.
The detrimental listing photo series should supply the written consent of the listing agent, or broker, for the promotion of the listing. This is the same Hall of Shame crap that Glenn buddy was pulling before he went to Congress to promote his Brokerage scheme.