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Name:
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John C
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great questions
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Date:
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12/1/2010 11:48:02 AM
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Those are great questions and are tough to answer. My attempts:
1. are prices down?
- Depends on your time frame. From 2005? Yep. From 2008? Yep. From 2009? I don't know yet. Since the number of waterfront home sales are so small I wait to calculate average prices until I have an entire 12 months worth. Then I will have some reliable numbers to count on, rather than just going with gut or intuition or whatever. It also can be misleading to look at advertised asking prices. Just because they remain high doesn't (necessarily) mean that they are selling at those points.
2. what about raw land?
- if by this you mean waterfront lots - I think the numbers show us that lot selling prices are down, not stable. I think they have actually decreased more % wise than waterfront homes, when you look back since 2007 or so.
3. if we remove distressed sales, doesn't that help the situation?
Maybe. But not significantly. Firstly, as a capitalist, or even an amateur economist, I have a problem with removing "distressed" sales from the statistical pool. A sale is a sale. Each one contributes to the whole. If you start cherry picking out sales here and there, it leaves too much room for skewing the numbers to whatever result you want. Think of yourself as a buyer - if you are choosing between 2 identical lots, and one is priced 15% higher than the other, which would you choose? Would you care that the other lot is a foreclosure? Of course not. Also, think of the contra argument. When times were booming, and if you were a seller faced with 2 offers that were identical except one is 15% higher than the other, which would you take? Would you care that the high one was made by an overly optimistic builder? Of course not. We didn't "throw out" those high sales in the good times, so no need to throw out foreclosures now. The second thing to consider is that, numerically, while there are certainly more foreclosures and short sales now than there were in 2005, they still aren't that big of a price driver. Sure, they are out there, and affect people's decisions. But I think that, today at least, prices are way more influenced by just the sheer number of things for sale rather than the number of foreclosures. How do I arrive at that conclusion? Consider - In October 2007 there were about 350 waterfront homes for sale. In October 2010 - about 450. A difference of about 100 or about 29%. That is huge. If you look at my list of waterfront foreclosures (linked below) you can see that only 8 of those are homes, and have the status of "Active" aka for sale right now. So only 8% of that increase is due to foreclosures right now. At different times in the year that number might have been 15 or 20%, but certainly never a majority. Put another way: sure, Lake Martin has had foreclosures, but not at the rate of other markets. Therefore I think we can logically conclude that the other 90% of homes are keeping prices low. Simple supply and demand.
The Outlook has an article in today's web edition in which other local realtors draw conclusions with which I generally agree. I just don't agree with the numbers that the paper cites to arrive at those conclusions. There are 3 big differences with what I have said above and that article -
1. they are citing numbers from the Lake Martin Area Association of Realtors in general - these numbers include on AND OFF water sales. My readers (and folks from this forum) told me a long time ago that they want me to report waterfront sales only. So that's what I do. Nothing wrong with citing on and off water sales, but you need to know the difference.
2. Median price of Oct 10 vs Oct 09 - while I like looking at median price, in our market we have so few sales that looking at any month per se can totally skew perceptions. Oct 10 sold 13 waterfront homes. Oct 09 sold 14. But if that one extra was a $1 million one, the gap can be huge. Much better to look at multiple months at once.
3. The same logic from #2 leads me to NOT look at sales to inventory numbers on a monthly basis. This is the most widely gyrating stat on the board. For instance, in Feb 10 it was 102 months. In July '10 it was 18.5. Now it is back to 34.85 for waterfront homes. These are all pretty meaningless statistics in my opinion. If we want to track market momentum by some sales to inventory method, I think it's much more useful to calculate the # of homes for sale divided by the rolling 12 months sales sum, and comparing that to the prior year. 453 waterfront homes are for sale in Oct 10. In the last 12 months from Oct '10, 189 waterfront homes were sold/ 453 / 189 = 2.397 years' inventory. For Oct '09 - 466 for sale and 186 rolling 12 months' were sold = 2.505 years' inventory. So again, I find myself generally agreeing with the article's conclusions, just not how they arrived there.
I do question with the article's statement that "larger markets should range between 6 and 12 months, Lake Martin, which
is primarily a market for secondary home buyers, should range from 12
to 16 months depending on the season."
My Econ 101 professor used to say that in economics - watch out for the words "should" and "ought" and "fair." They can be indicators of opinion sprinkled in to what is supposed to be objective science. I am not saying that they are incorrect, but that is such a huge statement that I would like some clarification. What are the statistics? What source? Over what time period? This to me would be a fascinating study.
I love Blue Bell Ice Cream. I think that it should be priced at 10 cents per half gallon, with no decrease in current quality. I am sure the folks that own Blue Bell think that it should be priced at $12 / half gallon. The free market disagrees with us both.
Speaking of opinions, please note that while the numbers I cite are all sourced from the Lake Martin MLS, all conclusions are mine and mine alone. I very well could be wrong. Lord knows I have been wrong about plenty of things in the past, and will in the future. But I do feel pretty secure that I am basing those opinions on the right set of data.
URL: Lake Martin Voice Realty Waterfront Foreclosure List
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