Calling The Bottom

[SHELLY]

Re: The bottom has arrived

That is not at all what I meant. What we don't currently have the ability to do is to know the quantity and $ value, and percentage of pendings which are converted into close, and the length of time it takes them to close, vs, the pendings which don't close, for whatever reason. You can track an individual listing to see if it goes pending, then is back on the market by the same seller, or if it actually closes. To my knowledge, we don't have a way of doing that on more than one property at a time.

By simply looking at the closed sales, and knowing the length of time it takes to close a property, you might have an idea of what percentage go to closing, but with new pendings coming on, and the pendings and closings occurring on a continual daily basis, the numbers might be better if you had a 90 day moving average. For example, a property going pending on Mar 29, might not close in April, and might carry over to May, but if you are counting on all Mar pendings closing in April, your numbers will be off.

All good points, thanks again Joe.

So from what I gather, the statistics and numbers they're using to report pendings and sales are essentially useless if one is attempting to size up the market. Coincidence? :shock:

.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Re: The bottom has arrived

All good points, thanks again Joe.

So from what I gather, the statistics and numbers they're using to report pendings and sales are essentially useless if one is attempting to size up the market. Coincidence? :shock:

.

If I correctly understand your question, I'd say no, the numbers are not useless for sizing up the market. The closed sales numbers are very helpful. I would agree that you cannot do much with pending or contingent listing information, as I have noted above. That pending data is useful to see contracts being written, but I could write a contract for a property for $100,000,000 and have the buyer back out because he couldn't get the financing, so again, it doesn't show anything other than activity. If we could get more data on percentage of pendings which go to close, then we might have a better forecasting tool, for about 30 days out.

I have it on my calendar to speak with the main guy at ECAR tomorrow, to see if we can get Solid Earth to hook up ECAR with that conversion info data for Realtors to access.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Re: The bottom has arrived

As an FYI, I may start writing in my SoWal blog, a monthly update on sales summary, and possibly include excel files showing history of sales by types of category. I'm not sure how easy that will be to show the actual numbers in a historical perspective, if I cannot just post my spreadsheets, but I can provide a summary of my thoughts based on the stats which I am seeing, and report each months numbers for each person to track. I'm not sure if you can have questions and answers regarding each blog either, but it might be a good place to question numbers in the stats, to understand them better, and possibly to start discussion on whether condos are outperforming single family detached homes, or whether SoWal homes outside of 30A are outselling 30A homes, etc.

 

[Joe Mammy]

Re: The bottom has arrived

Pending Sales for Combined Residential Homes in South Walton:

2007
Sep - $48.5 million
Oct - $45.4 million
Nov - $52.6 million
Dec - $39.3 million

2008
Jan - $40.7 million
Feb - $88.8 million
Mar - $84.3 million

We must bear in mind that the time frame of contracts from inception to close has increased. So many of the contracts that were pending in Jan are still pending in Feb, these are not necessarily new pendings and many of those numbers are carried over from the previous month(s).

The reason is the "short sale" takes longer to close. Remember, around 50% of all those pendings are short sales.

It may sound like mumbo jumbo to some but it really is quite simple:

increasing short sales = declining market

I update my site every morning with increases vs decreases but I also will be updating the short sale ratio for active listings each month.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Re: The bottom has arrived

good points joe mammy

 

[Joefromseagrove]

Re: The bottom has arrived

I thought when the category of "contingent" was added to the mls, it would clear this sort of thing up. "Pending" in my mind means that all contingencies, including financing have been cleared up and the only thing left is the closing.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Re: The bottom has arrived

Your mind is different than ECAR, at least in the definitions of pending and contingent. In truth, all contracts are contingent until the closing. I'll give you one extreme contingency: One party to the sales contract dies. Contingent category was created when agents wanted to continue to advertise property for back up contracts, which had specific contingencies which would be noted in the agent notes.

Following up on the earlier issue, I discussed the idea of being able to track the stats of pendings which go to close, with ECAR, this morning, and they are going to see if Solid Earth (software company) has that ability to run those stats. As I thought, that information is not currently available thru ECAR.

 

[JoshMclean]

Re: The bottom has arrived

You are a true asset to Realtors in this area Joe!

 

[Smiling JOe]

Re: The bottom has arrived

You are a true asset to Realtors in this area Joe!

There are three consecutive posts by three different Joes. Here's to all the average joe Realtors, not all whom are named Joe and not all whom are simply average, but whom are assets to this area and the profession of Realtors!

 

[Joefromseagrove]

Re: The bottom has arrived

Thanks smiling Joe for the clarification. If realtors didn't learn from one another, where would we be? Here's to a job where we both compete and cooperate at the same time.