Price Drops and Inventory

I just looked it up.

Lyle Finley did indeed purchase that parcel in June 2007, according to the property appraiser's website, and tore it down a few months later. Cost: $7.88 million.

The house next door, which sounds like you may have mistaken it for, also sold for over $7 million, in September of 2006.

So: How or did that purchase skew the June numbers? If you throw out the top and bottom values like an Olympic figure skating judge, what do you get for June 07 and June 08?

Okay.. Throw out Finleys house and add back the other two I threw out in the previous summary and you get roughly the same answer--average price is down 30% or so year over year.

ECAR sold statistics include any short sales and foreclosures which involve a Realtor on either side of a transaction. ECAR's sold properties are also supposed to include any sold at auction when the auction company is a member of ECAR, per MLS rules.

The average home sale in South Walton is reported in an above post and shows that price increasing over the last two months, and inventory has dropped during that time. Is the sky falling, Chicken Little? Also, using those figures, June's average price is right in line with the average for the year to date.

What is the average price compared to prior year? There have been no chicken littles on this forum. All the bears have been right on the money and the bulls have been dead wrong.

The sky hasn't stopped falling.

ECAR sold statistics include any short sales and foreclosures which involve a Realtor on either side of a transaction. ECAR's sold properties are also supposed to include any sold at auction when the auction company is a member of ECAR, per MLS rules.

Would an ECAR affiliated agent care to publish that data here so we can graph it out and really see where we are headed?

The average home sale in South Walton is reported in an above post and shows that price increasing over the last two months, and inventory has dropped during that time.

Joe, I respect your view on things. You're a veteran on this board and everyone here respects your opinion, myself included. But come on, is inventory really dropping when you look at the data overall? Are prices really increasing? We both look at the hot sheets. When was the last time we noted a "+10" in a price change hot list? Also, I've published graphs here based on Josh's ECAR inventory data. Is inventory really dropping?

We both look at the hot sheets. When was the last time we noted a "+10" in a price change hot list? Also, I've published graphs here based on Josh's ECAR inventory data. Is inventory really dropping?

I suspect some inventory drops off the MLS as it is rented out or goes into foreclosure.

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What is the average price compared to prior year? There have been no chicken littles on this forum. All the bears have been right on the money and the bulls have been dead wrong.

The sky hasn't stopped falling.

Would an ECAR affiliated agent care to publish that data here so we can graph it out and really see where we are headed?



Joe, I respect your view on things. You're a veteran on this board and everyone here respects your opinion, myself included. But come on, is inventory really dropping when you look at the data overall? Are prices really increasing? We both look at the hot sheets. When was the last time we noted a "+10" in a price change hot list? Also, I've published graphs here based on Josh's ECAR inventory data. Is inventory really dropping?

I guess you could call me a bull, as opposed to a bear, but I don't hide from the fact that inventory is still high, and many properties are not listed, as their owners know their property won't sell at the wishful price right now. Prices are down from historic highs in 2005. To not recognize that, one would be blind.

To keep the conversation on the same track, I'll use single family homes and areas 16-19, Inlet Beach to Mack Bayou. However, I will mention that if you look at Combined Residential (detached homes, attached homes, and condos) for all of South Walton, you will see that inventory has steadily decreased, and hasn't been this low since Feb 2006. That said, it still needs to come down. Looking specifically at single family homes and areas 16-19, Inlet Beach to Mack Bayou and comparing June 2008 to June 2007, inventory has decreased by 8%, from 1542 to 1409. Avg sales price appears to be down signicantly, but if you take out the extreme high sale of $7.8 million from 2007, it is right in line, and comparing it to year to date of 2008, which the avg sale price was $803,083, you will see that it is higher than the avg. So you tell me if it is going up or down. Yes, it is below last years single month sales avg for June, but it is in line with 2008 sales, and higher than 3 out of 5 previous months for 2008. A better way to look at these figures is through a 3-month moving average, if anyone wants to run those through a chart.

It is easy to say that we are up or down, depending on the comparisons used.
I will attach a small chart for the last 18 months for you to see the comparisons questioned.

Regardless of whether inventory is up or down, how long will current supply take to sell, based upon current sales rates? I'd be interested to see that number for both homes/condos and for residential land.

I will attach a small chart for the last 18 months for you to see the comparisons questioned.

mmm raw data. thanks Joe.

Considering the number of new listings that have landed in the last six months, I'd say a flatline (or even sightly increasing) inventory is good news. But at these inventory levels I think we'll continue to see downward price pressure for quite some time to come. Just my opinion of course, I could be wrong.

mmm raw data. thanks Joe.

30a--go back and do a search for sales data and you can find inventory data going back to 2003. Inventory levels were as low as 150 at one point in time. It would be interesting to see you graph the data going back that far.

Regardless of whether inventory is up or down, how long will current supply take to sell, based upon current sales rates? I'd be interested to see that number for both homes/condos and for residential land.

Years considering the current state of the loan market and the country's economic outlook.

Avg sales price appears to be down signicantly, but if you take out the extreme high sale of $7.8 million from 2007, it is right in line, and comparing it to year to date of 2008, which the avg sale price was $803,083, you will see that it is higher than the avg. So you tell me if it is going up or down. Yes, it is below last years single month sales avg for June, but it is in line with 2008 sales, and higher than 3 out of 5 previous months for 2008. A better way to look at these figures is through a 3-month moving average, if anyone wants to run those through a chart.

It is easy to say that we are up or down, depending on the comparisons used.
I will attach a small chart for the last 18 months for you to see the comparisons questioned.

Thanks for the additional data. Even more revealing when you dig into it.

I took your numbers. Actually, based on those numbers, avg year to date sales price (eliminating the $7 million sale in 2007) in 2008 is $792k and in 2007 it was $954k. That's down 17%. The three month (vs 6 month) rolling is down slightly more at an 18% decrease. June sales price is down 25% versus prior year even after throwing out the $7 million sale in 2007.

So, where is it easy to show that prices are trending UP over prior year?

30a--go back and do a search for sales data and you can find inventory data going back to 2003. Inventory levels were as low as 150 at one point in time. It would be interesting to see you graph the data going back that far.

Jan 1998 was the lowest inventory I've ever seen for that same area (16-19) for single family detached homes, and it was 266. Maybe you are looking at something else. For that particular area, it sure would be nice to get back to around 500 units of detached homes, like we had in 2001 and 2002. Looking back through time, you can see the major decrease to 311 in June 2004, as people began to hold on very tightly to their property. Every For Sale sign in a yard was already under contract, sometimes before the sign was even posted.

Fisher, I believe your post which brought all of the attention mentioned that June 2008 was the worst month we've seen this year. All of the information provided since that post shows otherwise. I don't recall saying that the avg sale price has been trending up since last year. What I have said is that the avg sales price for June 2008, for detached homes in areas 16-19, were in line with the avg sales price for all of 2008. I'm not sure how you are reading my posts as sales price of home sales is taking off to the sky, but that is what it sounds like you are suggesting that I'm saying. Would it help if I concur that the avg sales price for June 2008 for detached homes in areas 16-19 was significantly lower than June 2007? I do agree with that very narrowly-focussed assessment.

30a--go back and do a search for sales data and you can find inventory data going back to 2003. Inventory levels were as low as 150 at one point in time. It would be interesting to see you graph the data going back that far.

From a previous thread, for all of walton from okaloosa to seacrest I believe, the data was provided by Josh McLean -




I've got raw sales counts and valuation going back to 1990 if anybody wants to see it.

Fisher, I believe your post which brought all of the attention mentioned that June 2008 was the worst month we've seen this year. All of the information provided since that post shows otherwise. I don't recall saying that the avg sale price has been trending up since last year. What I have said is that the avg sales price for June 2008, for detached homes in areas 16-19, were in line with the avg sales price for all of 2008. I'm not sure how you are reading my posts as sales price of home sales is taking off to the sky, but that is what it sounds like you are suggesting that I'm saying. Would it help if I concur that the avg sales price for June 2008 for detached homes in areas 16-19 was significantly lower than June 2007? I do agree with that very narrowly-focussed assessment.

Actually, I said that June was the worst month we have seen in a long time (and remember that the comment was based on the Real Trend report. Overall, the comment was dead on for Walco as a whole). So, those subsequent posts do not show my comments to be wrong. No one questioned the stats for all of Walco. The subsequent posts by you and others are focused on Sowal not Walco like my real trend posting that started this line of posts.

My subsequent posts started looking at year over year trends to counter the Sowal directed comments that April, May and June numbers look good compared to Jan, Feb and March of the same year (no kidding, the late spring numbers look better than deep winter numbers? Now thats a revelation!). My points were that prices continue to be on a downward spiral in Walton County as a whole and in Sowal too. In fact, with the additional info that Murray supplied, I posted that prices are down more in Sowal than they are countywide.

I was told that my comments regarding the real trend report were too BROAD and that I needed to look more closely at the Sowal only market. So, I did focus on Sowal. Now you are saying my comments regarding both June AND June year to date price trends for Sowal are too NARROW. You also specifically asked for a look at the rolling 3 months average and I provided that too. Those numbers look bad too. So, where is the sweet spot for doing a bit of analysis of trends in the market? Is it all of walco or just sowal? Is it a 6 month average or a 3 month average or a 1 month average. I provided all of those trend numbers in posts above. And, none of the trends seem to be relevant be they broad or narrow. What gives? Give me the 12 month numbers or the 24 month numbers, I can crunch those quickly too. They will likely tell the same story of a rapidly declining market.

Joe,

Let's say hypothetically that in January 2008, I posted the comment that volume in January was at the lowest level since March 2007 (not sure it's true, but it could be based on seasonal trends). I would have gotten a huge amount of grief. Why, because it is a very narrow comment and an apples and oranges comparison. Sales in January are generally very, very low compared to most other months--especially spring months.

So, when Murray posts things like this--"Regarding home sales (detached, attached, and condos) for April 2008, I am glad to see the sales numbers hold tight to March 2008 sales, which were up over Jan and Feb '08. That gives us two fairly strong, consecutive months of sales, and the average sales price is up 30% over March 2008, " I call BS. Just like you would have done to me if I had made a comment about January sales being low compared to spring months.

So, it's hard for me to swallow your comments about being narrow compared to the fluffy spin from Murray.

I think you forget that several people have been saying that business is down, and that they didn't believe the "Realtor hype" when some Realtors posted that they had been busy. Having increased sales for a few months does back up what they said about writing contracts and being busy.

I think you just want to disagree, and that is fine.