We did our first post on Irvine Sales Trends many months ago. Today’s post includes the 2007 numbers through August. Although the charts are an improvement from the past, I still have a lot to learn from twist. Keep in mind that the data used to generate these charts comes from MLS.
We’ll start with a look at # of sales by month from 1998-2007:
The 3 Month and 12 Month Moving Averages help indicate the trend. Next, we’ll compare the data by year. I’ve create separate charts for 1998-2002 and 2003-2007 because it is a little messy with 10 data sets.
It looks like although SFR sales are about the same in 2007 when compared to 2006, Condo sales are definitely slower in 2007.
Now only if I had the median sales price data for Irvine for the last 9 years. 🙂
UPDATE: Here is the data used to generate the charts above: Irvine Sales Trends.xls
The 12 month averaged data for condo’s looks like it is going to flat line…….
—–
What is the mean and standard deviation of monthly home sales using the 12-month smoothed series and the past 10 years of data?
I’ll try to incorporate this the next time I do a post on sales trends. In the meanwhile, I’ve updated the post with a link to the spreadsheet which has all the data points.
When I look at the charts and read the numbers about sales volume, it raises a question in my simple little head since the voume numbers and comparisions are always pure numbers. How are these sales volumes when they are adjusted to the overall population growth? If the population has grown by 10% over the 1998-2007, then the numbers of comparision sales should be adjusted according to total housing units to really see the effect of the situation we are in now. Is that possible to do? Does this make sense to question this realationship?
Oh, I am certain that Irvine has grown more than 10% over that time period, I don’t have the real number….
That is a good point. I know some of the people tracking foreclosures have made an inventory adjustment for the reason you described. Obviously, such an adjustment makes the declining sales look even worse.
This is confirmation of our observations concerning the way the median has not dropped when we see prices dropping on individual properties. With the sales of the less expensive properties declining, these data points are not bringing the median down. As someone pointed out a few days ago, when sales pick back up in the low end, the median will drop even if prices are rising.
I was unable to access the spreadsheet. For some reason I am unable to open the file using Excel 2000.
Irvine Renter,
Concerning the population of Irvine, it grew 30% from 2003 when I arrived to 2006 when I left. I wonder how the number of housing units changed. I know the number of apartments boomed, so the total number of houses and condos probably grew something less than 30%.
I’ve uploaded a new version that should work in Excel 2000. The old one was in the Excel 2007 format.
We’re accurately explaining the median’s stablility based upon fewer low-end homes being sold. When low-end sales volume surpasses higher-end sales volume and the median plummets 20%+, I hope we’ll still explain this as not reflective of the “real median.”
Surge in Lending Rates Shows Credit Squeeze Worsening
2007-09-17 08:00
By Gavin Finch
Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) — The cost of overnight borrowing in pounds rose the most since June as the bailout of U.K. lender Northern Rock Plc stoked concern that more home-loan providers will be forced to seek emergency funding.
The London interbank offered rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans in pounds increased 60 basis points to 6.47 percent today, the highest in more than a month, according to the British Bankers’ Association.
A squeeze on lending sparked by losses linked to U.S. subprime mortgages has pushed the gap between three-month rates and the Bank of England’s benchmark rate to near the widest in at least two decades, fueling demand for overnight money. Northern Rock required emergency financing from the central bank because it relies on the capital markets rather than deposits for 73 percent of its funds.
Hovnanian Enterprises Announces Successful Preliminary Sales Results for the ‘Deal of the Century’ Nationwide Sales Campaign
Monday September 17, 12:00 pm ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070917/nem106.html?.v=14
An excellent series of interviews today with Alan Greenspan by Fortune Magazine.
http://thegreatloanblog.blogspot.com
A comment on so-called victims.
In the mid 80s I closed the first round of negative am
mtges. I told people that they would make these
payments and at the end of the year they would owe
more money than then did now.
I said they’d better not use as a defense to a foreclosure that
I didn’t explain it right.
Nobody walked out. Everybody signed. All they cared about was
their first year’s monthly payment. Really most people are not capable of planning ahead for more than a year.
I don’t think it is stupidity, tho there is a bunch of laziness there.
I think it is the fact that people have a herd instinct, together
with the fact that people are easily swayed by a strong personality.
I tell people no all the time. There are those who never heard
that before.
I think it is something like the same reason (in an unpleasant and probably unethical psych experiment of the 80s) why those people who
thought there were giving electric shocks to other people to force
them to learn something continued to do it, even tho they didn’t want
to cause pain to another human being. They couldn’t explain afterward why they turned the pain knob up so high, except the experimenter told them to do it.
Instead of being taught to be little sheep in the classroom, kids
should be taught to say no and stand up for themselves.
But sheep are more convenient for everybody. And most people
are very sheeplike naturally, so it’s hard to impossible to get them
to be even a little wolfish.
That said, there were some real con artists, who tried to hide what
they were doing.
Now is the time to pay $2M for a $1M home. Hmmm…
“WTF is a destination neighborhood?”
I guess it must be a status thing. “I have arrived.”
Thanks! That’s a great link.
Foreign investors, lured by favorable exchange rates and lower prices, are shopping for bargains in U.S. real estate.
http://realestate.msn.com/Buying/Article_bankrate.aspx?cp-documentid=5424929>1=10431
Adjusting for population does not paint an accurate picture due to the fact that household size has increased since 2000. Average household size has grown from 2.66 to 2.78 and owner occupied household growth as grown from 2.78 to 2.94 from 2000 to 2006.
An accurate way to look at growth is to look at the 12,824 +23.9% housing units that have been added in Irvine and the 12,502 +24.4% households that have been added since 2000. The amount of occupied units grew by 12,477 +24.3%, owner occupied units grew by 5211 +17% and renters grew by 7236 +35.3%. This shows that as households have grown the amount of housing growth has kept up.
Irvine’s housing stock is estimated at 66,536 and 35,907 54% is owner occupied and in 2000 57.2% of the housing stock was owner occupied.
“Destination neighborhood,” gives me an idea for the next blog song: Missing Persons’ Destination Unknown
Life is so strange
When you don’t know
How can you tell
Where you’re going to?
You can’t be sure of any situation
something could change
and then you won’t know
Where do we go from here?
It seems so all too near
Just as far beyond as i can see
I still don’t know what this all means to me
I don’t know where to go
I don’t know what to do
And i don’t even know the time of day
I guess it doesn’t matter anyway
life is so strange
Destination unknown
When you don’t know
your destination
Something could change
It’s unknown
and then you won’t know
Destination Unknown
Delinquent taxpayers owe $160 million
http://lansner.freedomblogging.com/category/real-estate-taxes/
Property tax tardiness continues to swell in Orange County, according to the latest figures out from Tax Man Chriss Street, the Orange County treasurer-tax collector.
As of May, 52,297 O.C. property owners had missed deadlines to make their 2006-07 tax payments, owing $160 million. That’s 54% more tardy dollars than the previous year.
It means that 3.82% of the nearly $4.2 billion in taxes went unpaid.
The numbers mimic the trend that Jon Lansner identified in February when 5.32% of the amount owed for the first installment went unpaid.
As of May, the first-installment delinquency rate was trimmed to 2.18% as procrastinators paid up — or their lenders stepped in and paid it for them. Still, 5.46% of the second installment payments due by April 10 were delinquent – the highest second-installment delinquency rate in 11 years.
Street blamed the increase in delinquencies on more taxpayers not having the ability to pay.
“Some of the stories are just grim. People were just desperate,” Street said. “Clearly they didn’t know what they were getting into.”
I wonder if any of these delinquencies should have
been paid by bankrupt American Home Mtg?
I didn’t know foreigners had a proclivity for falling knives.
How could this be? The Orange County economy is so strong.
OK… so yesterday I decided I’d do my civic duty and go find a home in a “destination neighborhood”. In this case I chose the Summit Homes on TRidge.
Since I worked yesterday, yep it’s hard keeping the world safe from the bad guys, I was smoking a nice Trinidad TTT Robusto Maduro in my Acura TL as I drove up to the gate.
I had about 2 inches left on the little baby.
I told the guard at thegate that I wanted to look at the Open Houses. There were four signs.
So, the good fellow goes in the shack and comes up with some flyers.
So far, so good.
However, as he turned to go back to open the gate he asked me to either kill the cigar or put it away for later. It was a “fire danger” he said.
I was incredulous.
You don’t relight a good cigar.
You don’t kill a good cigar.
I looked at him… and said “Are you kidding? Wasting a fine 15 cigar just to go in and see some open houses”..
(Note, I don’t pay nearly that much since I get them over the Internet… but if you bought them in California, with our crazy taxes, you’d be paying that much or more).
Anyhow, the fellow insisted.
So… what was I gonna do. I just told him “forget it, those open houses are not worth wasting a fine cigar… I’ll just make a U turn right here”.
So I did… made the turn, turned up a bit the great stereo in my fine car, took a couple of satisfying drags on my cigar and went off to TR.
Really, now you know why TRidge is hurting. The type of person to buy a 2 MIL home is the type that will have a nice car and enjoy fine cigars.
Thanks, but no sale.
Benihana.
Right. That’s just as thoughtful as the person I saw bring their little dog (walking on the floor, leashed, not carried) though someone’s open house and onto their fine Persian carpet in the dining room…
Surprise: LA inventory slips
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2007/09/surprise-la-inv.html
Foreign money has historically done very poorly in American asset bubbles. The merger and acquisition mania in the late 80s died once the Japanese got involved, and they lost tons. They also lost a lot of money (along with the Saudis) on the last American housing bubble in the late 80s. Now they are looking to get creamed in this bubble, as they own a lot of the asset-back securities.
I don’t know why this is so. Perhaps they don’t have the visibility Americans do say they arrive late to the party.
I think it’s because at the end of asset bubbles, the dollar always goes down vs foreign currency. So it looks like a good buy for foreigners in comparison to where it was at the top.
No…. that’s not what I meant. I was in my car and I wanted to drive through the neighborhood to look at the outside of the homes.
I didn’t intend to walk into an open house with my cigar. I don’t do that in my own home (heck, we take our shoes off at the door).
But I’ve never been told I couldn’t drive through an area, in my car, with a cigar. That’s the ultimate insult. What did that guard think I was? Of course, my purchased Acura is likely no match for all of those leased Benzes, eh?
Let’s see how many of those Benzes get traded for a Kia in a year.