Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, April 26, 2012, 2:20 PM
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We published our report on Long Island sales for 1Q 2012 this morning. I’ve been authoring this report series for Douglas Elliman since 1994.
Here are some takeaways:
- Housing prices were mixed – median sales price unchanged 0% but average sales price fell 5.4%. The drop in mortgage rates shifted mix to lower priced homes.
- Pending sales unexpectedly jumped from year ago levels (+21.2%) as mild winter weather brought consumers into the market earlier than usual.
- The luxury market was somewhat weaker than the overall market. Luxury median price slipped 2.6% year over year.
- Listing inventory was also down (4.1%) as sellers were more cautious about listing their homes.
- Properties taking somewhat longer to sell and there is a little more negotiability on price between buyer and seller (days on market and listing discount expanded)
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
Although the number of sales slipped 1.2% from
prior year levels, the mild winter weather brought
an unexpected surge in first quarter pending
sales. There were 5,209 signed contracts
outstanding in the first quarter, 21.2% more
than 4,297 in the prior year quarter. The unusual
amount of pending sales activity this quarter may
temper the levels of the second quarter, typically
a high water mark for sales activity each year.
Listing inventory slipped 4.1% to 20,358, the
lowest first quarter total in six years…
I’ve got a tool to build custom data tables and view charts on the market.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, January 27, 2012, 10:25 AM
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I got a call from the New York Times recently in response to a Redfin study looking at the best time to list a house. Their conclusion seemed to be different than my experience in the NYC metro area, Washington, DC, Baltimore and Miami, all housing markets I have analyzed extensively so I dug deeper. I was inspired by the challenge and looked to Long Island for answers.
I think it really came down to the way Redfin used “winter” in the study since I came up with March as the best time to list using the extensive data over at the MLSLI (16,664 signed contracts from 12/10 to 11/11).
The Redfin report concluded that when you list in the Winter, you have less competition. However, you also have a lot less buyers so that benefit would be an offset by lower demand. This point is illustrated by the fact that the highest number of listings actually enter the market in March which is the month that results in the fastest marketing time.
When I drilled down to the day of the week, I caveated to the reporter (and was pointed out by the brokers in the article) that I think it really depends on the date of the broker tour day (the day brokers view new listings that came on the market). When I lived in Chicago, my town tour day was on a Friday and in my hometown in Connecticut, our broker tour day is on Tuesday. I would bet that Friday is a more common day for broker tours (to view all new listings that entered the market that week) which makes the findings somewhat contrarian since I would think Thursday would have been the best day to list (it was a close third best) because the property has time to get distributed before the tour day.
Of course this doesn’t suggest that a seller who decides they want to sell their home and it happens to be June, must wait until the following March.
Whatever the reasons or issues that are raised, we looked at over 16,000 contracts in a one year period marketed through the MLS of Long Island, excluding the Hamptons/North Fork. I was only measuring the time to market a property, not whether the highest price was achieved. I’ve got metrics on that but I want to crunch the numbers over a longer period to get more comfortable with them. I plan to do this in other markets I cover with MLS data.
Listing on a Wednesday, on average, results in the fastest marketing time.
Conclusion to the question: “When is the best time to list your property?”
These are mutually exclusive results but based on the data resulted in the fastest marketing time – days on market from original listing date to contract date.
Here other some other findings:
More listings enter the market on a Monday.
The most signed contracts occur in June.
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, January 26, 2012, 10:32 AM
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We released our report on the Long Island sales market for 4Q 2011 this morning. I’ve been authoring this series for Douglas Elliman since 1994.
We also published a companion report, The Long Island Decade 2002-2011 is the first of its kind, to lay out out the market in context over an expanded window of time.
Long Island remains weak, but considering the turmoil of the fall that began with the S&P downgrade of US debt in August that lead to significant volatility in the financial markets and the European debt crisis, this uncertainty resulted in a modest decline in housing prices and a nominal decline in sales activity. However this weakness has been a continuing trend.
Here’s an excerpt from the 4Q 2011 report:
Housing prices slipped in the fourth quarter,
dipping below prior year levels. Median sales
price was $339,000 in the fourth quarter, 4.8%
below $356,050 in the same period last year.
Average sales price showed a similar trend,
declining 5.1% over the same period to $412,060
from $434,424 in the prior year quarter.
The number of sales for the quarter totaled
4,222, essentially unchanged from the 4,252
total of the same quarter last year. However,
pending sales declined 7% to 4,134 from 4,447
over the same period. Listing inventory slipped
1.6% over the year to 18,447 from 18,742 in the
prior year quarter. During the fall, housing market
participants were confronted with a series
of economic woes, such as financial market
volatility after the S&P rating agency downgraded
US debt last August, and the financial crisis in
Europe. As a result, they appeared to press the
“pause” button, taking longer to make decisions
and waiting until more time had passed before
returning to the market.
The custom data tables are updated and ready for you to play with. The chart section on the new site remains a work in progress.
The Elliman Report: 4Q 2011 Long Island Sales [Prudential Douglas Elliman]
The Elliman Report: 2002-2011 Long Island Decade [Prudential Douglas Elliman]
The Elliman Report: 4Q 2011 Long Island Sales [Miller Samuel]
The Elliman Report: 2002-2011 Long Island Decade [Miller Samuel]
