Fun with numbers, summer 2010 edition
This blog hasn't been updated very regularly, but that doesn't mean I haven't been watching the market get all giddy with spring fever and the irresponsible tax credits that have been doled out by various entities that sometimes really can't afford it. Predictably, the giddiness and market distortions have caused prices and sales to rise in the first half of 2010 (view the original chart here):
One thing that's struck me over the past few weeks is how inflated the newer listings seem to be on a price per square foot basis. So I fired up the ol' spreadsheet to see if I was imagining things, and lo and behold, there's an amusing relationship between price per square foot and days on market:
The graph shows the average price per square foot for 94501 as of 7/23/2010 (thanks Redfin for the downloadable data), plotted against days on market. The blue bars (left in each pair) show the cumulative average (e.g. "<=30 days" includes listings on the market between 1 and 30 days). The red bars show the average for each band excluding previous bands (e.g. "<= 30 days" means 15 to 30 days, "<=15 days" means 8 to 14, etc).
It's not terribly surprising that older listings tend to have a lower price per sqft, if only because they're more likely to have had a price reduction; that said, one might also expect the reverse, i.e. the listings that stay on the market for a long time are disproportionately likely to have a high price per sqft. So this result is by no means self-evident.
By and large the data does indicate that the listings that have appeared on the market recently tend to have been priced using either the obscene gauge or the moron method.
Quite a few of these are, not surprisingly, bubble purchases coming home to roost: 3030 Thompson is an old acquaintance of ours; 3115 Fairview was bought for way too much in 2006 and is back for about $100K less, but still too much; 1100 Post one of those suicidally ugly post-war houses on that little stretch that curb appeal and interior design both forgot, is listed for more than its previous sale price, way too high but people inexplicably still fall for the old ugly-but-gorgeous-deep-down-inside trick; 2288 Chipman is one of them Bayport albatross that shouldn't have been built (or bought) in the first place.
Paying too much for housing and subprime lending: it's the new black.
One thing that's struck me over the past few weeks is how inflated the newer listings seem to be on a price per square foot basis. So I fired up the ol' spreadsheet to see if I was imagining things, and lo and behold, there's an amusing relationship between price per square foot and days on market:The graph shows the average price per square foot for 94501 as of 7/23/2010 (thanks Redfin for the downloadable data), plotted against days on market. The blue bars (left in each pair) show the cumulative average (e.g. "<=30 days" includes listings on the market between 1 and 30 days). The red bars show the average for each band excluding previous bands (e.g. "<= 30 days" means 15 to 30 days, "<=15 days" means 8 to 14, etc).
It's not terribly surprising that older listings tend to have a lower price per sqft, if only because they're more likely to have had a price reduction; that said, one might also expect the reverse, i.e. the listings that stay on the market for a long time are disproportionately likely to have a high price per sqft. So this result is by no means self-evident.
By and large the data does indicate that the listings that have appeared on the market recently tend to have been priced using either the obscene gauge or the moron method.
Quite a few of these are, not surprisingly, bubble purchases coming home to roost: 3030 Thompson is an old acquaintance of ours; 3115 Fairview was bought for way too much in 2006 and is back for about $100K less, but still too much; 1100 Post one of those suicidally ugly post-war houses on that little stretch that curb appeal and interior design both forgot, is listed for more than its previous sale price, way too high but people inexplicably still fall for the old ugly-but-gorgeous-deep-down-inside trick; 2288 Chipman is one of them Bayport albatross that shouldn't have been built (or bought) in the first place.
Paying too much for housing and subprime lending: it's the new black.
Miscellaneous