I’ll be real eager to see the May numbers, but if these numbers are based on a weighted 3 month average, I’d be very surprised to see a May decline in CS #s for Seattle.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008017848_office26.html

“yeah, i bet people who lost power during the heat wave must really think Ca weather is special.

another small factor for why seattle proper RE will do better in the long run: cheap electricity. seattle city light customers pay about half of what PSE, Tacoma, or SnoPUD customers do. the lower rates are due mostly to low cost energy from big hydro dams built early last century.”

Now it is electricity rates that will save the Seattle RE market. Hmmm, I can see it now in a few months — “Well you know people actually like the clouds and drizzle. Skin cancer is a big problem these days — the rain helps to keep people in doors” What a JOKE.

My belief is that when you are at a historical high, it’s much more logical to expect things to go lower than you expect than it is to expect them to go higher. Particularly when you are dealing with a constrained population.

1 month: 10% / month
2 months: 8% / month
3 months: 7% / month
4 months: 6% / month
5 months: 5% / month
6 months: 5% / month

That is with 28 months of data. Certainly, not very much data.

Using this primitive model and historical data,
June is unlikely to have less than a 36% increase in inventory;
July is unlikely to have less than a 26% increase in inventory;
August is unlikely to have less than a 25% increase in inventory;
September is unlikely to have less than 20% increase in inventory.

Inventory peaked last year around 11500 in September. According to this model, inventory is unlikely to peak below 13800 this year.

On the upside, we get 51%, 57%, 63% and 66%. September inventory is unlikely to peak above 19000.

The average between that upper bound and lower bound is around 16500.

I would be willing to bet $20 that the inventory is within my bounds.

wouldn’t a 40% increase over ‘record lows’ constitute a shift towards ‘balanced market’? (I admit that it has obviously swung past ‘balanced’ and more towards ‘buyers market’… but lets not get over excited about a large increase relative to record lows…. its all relative.

Last year I was tracking inventory weekly for a few months before Tim automated the hourly feed. Inventory seemed to level off in June then started rising again in August. But maybe that pattern is due to the whole credit implosion and we won’t see it again.

I agree with the idea that migration will slow or maybe even reverse locally depending on the economics but California won’t be on the receiving end. California’s cities are falling apart. I’m in San Francisco for work temporarily and the word “"chocolate"hole” comes to mind

13,000-14,999 (14%, 29 Votes)
15,000-16,999 (30%, 60 Votes)
17,000-17,999 (18%, 36 Votes)
18,000-18,999 (15%, 31 Votes)
19,000-19,999 (2%, 5 Votes)
20,000+ (21%, 42 Votes)

21% predicted >20k!

And here is the normalized inventory pattern for the past 8 years (vs average)

Jan | 92%
Feb | 92%
Mar | 94%
Apr | 98%
May | 103%
Jun | 107%
Jul | 108%
Aug | 108%
Sep | 109%
Oct | 106%
Nov | 100%
Dec | 83%

So peak month and June are on average pretty close to each other. I am skeptical that the peak month can be 30% higher than June (which is what 17k implies)- particularly when you can see the rate of YoY growth leveling off in the numbers Tim posted. It looks to me like we are past the second curve on the “S” of the growth.

-8.19%
-4.64%
-2.75%
2.39%
10.20%
17.17%
19.29%
23.91%
28.79%
30.78%
27.72%
22.94%
21.93%
22.50%
32.59%
38.42%
44.17%
45.75%
43.97%
43.05%
40.21%
36.76%
41.41%
50.97%
55.61%
61.25%
56.64%
49.35%
41.67%

How volitile is the YOY inventory change? Did it suddenly jump to 40% or was it a gradual change?

the inventory may depend a lot on how distressed properties are dealt with.

Or not so much. Check foreclosure.com. There are 641 foreclosure listings across SFH + condos. Compare this to the ~17,300 listings on Tim’s tracker. It’s about 4% of the volume. Foreclosures would have to go up by 3 or 4x to have a material impact on that number.

the inventory may depend a lot on how distressed properties are dealt with.

nobody WANTS to put their house on the market late in the summer, but some people may have little choice. a look at RE loan delinquencies in the area would be a good leading indicator for this.

I expect to see at least 16k for KC SHF inventory around the end of September. 17k wouldn’t surprise me.

I think significant additional growth in inventory is unlikely. The typical seasonal pattern for Inventory is for it to remain flat over the summer before rising slightly in the fall. And given that we are currently at record inventory levels, the probability is much greater that we will be under the typical pattern than it is that we will be over the typical pattern. Regression to the mean and all

I can’t get the link to work, but if you look at the CPI chart there is a bump in 1998 where the line is curved to a higher rate of appreciation from then. What was the deal with that?

Ha! That would only happen if people were able to sell houses at the current grossly inflated values.

Although its nice to see the split into high-med-low tiers, it would be even better to see how much volume in sales we are seeing in each tier. I strongly suspect the “spring bump” is the very few high end homes (> 1 million) sold a little better than expected.

another small factor for why seattle proper RE will do better in the long run: cheap electricity. seattle city light customers pay about half of what PSE, Tacoma, or SnoPUD customers do. the lower rates are due mostly to low cost energy from big hydro dams built early last century.

Anyways, the long story is that you can’t take 3 years worth of information about a housing market and extrapolate it to 10 years in the future. In fact, that should be THE lesson from this entire ridiculous misallocation of assets.

Even what looks like reasonable gains in the first part of the decade are unhealthy.

It looks like the low end didn’t bump up much…