Redfin rolled out some great new statistical features today that are definitely worth mentioning.
Automated market statistics broken down by city, neighborhood, or zip code, with charts showing inventory, price per square foot, and price reduction trends over the last year.
CEO Glenn Kelman announces the new features in a blog post today:
Redfin released a big, beautiful new version of its website last night. For the first time in years, there’s a whole new web page on the site — not just a map and a web page for each property on the map — but a set of graphs, pictures, charts, numbers showing all the pricing trends for each of the 9,000 neighborhoods, postal codes and cities Redfin covers. This is the good stuff, drawn straight from the MLS databases real estate agents use to list properties and the tax rolls that counties use to record sales.
It’s a big deal, because consumers have never had access to reliable real estate data down to the neighborhood level.
…
Now you can see what’s really going on with your neighborhood’s prices, right now: dollars per square foot, numbers of homes for sale, days on market, price reductions. We split out condos and houses because they’re priced so differently. The pricing graphs show listings and past sales separately, so you get a view of what sellers expect and what they really got.
He also takes the time to go through a few other new features they have rolled out for home shoppers, so definitely go check out his whole post.
To access the spiffy new statistics, just type in a city, zip code, or neighborhood into the Redfin search field, wait for it to populate the map, then click “View [the area you typed] Inventory & Pricing Trends” in the upper-left corner of the map.
These tools are a great resource for figuring out what’s going on in the “hyper local” real estate markets that interest you. Kudos to Redfin for coming out with such great resources for home buyers and sellers to track what’s going on in their own back yard.
One still needs to dig through the sales to see exactly what sold.
I look at condos and see one sale listed as 3 separate sales at the same price. One for the unit, one for the parking space and one for the storage. I have seen parking/storage spaces that have a $psf listing that uses the square footage of the space but the price of the unit. It tends to skew the $psf average up.
Redfin also lists commercial sales as condo sales.
Can’s say who’s fault it is that the data is misleading…but never the less…it’s misleading. Don’t just go off the numbers and charts. Look at the Redfins data and compare it to county records.
Past sale data is a tricky beast. If you see examples of bad sales data please email us the URL for the past sale at techsupport@redfin.com and we’ll filter it out.
someone peed on EconE’s cheerios…
lol DJ…
hey…wait…is that supposed to be “antagonistic”?
;oP
Why is it for every neighborhood I could think of the listed price per square foot is higher than the sold price per square foot?
It actually was the reverse I saw.
Garth, I’m looking at Seattle overall, and for houses sold price is higher but for condo list price is higher. I was also surprised at how much higher the $/sq ft a condo is than a house.
Anyway, RAL was right, the bottom of the $/sq ft for houses in Seattle was in March.
Here are a few examples for you DJ
purchase of two adjoining units counted as two separate $1.175mm sales. One sale listed as two.
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/100-1st-Ave-S-98104/unit-16/home/28196
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/100-1st-Ave-S-98104/unit-15/home/1491
another purchase of two adjoining units plus two garage spots listed as four individual sales.
units…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-D10/home/9925
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-C10/home/65576
parking spots…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-GA19/home/10570
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-GA32/home/68686
$4273 psf for those parking spots. Nope…that doesn’t skew anything. ;o)
more double units…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/1024-E-Pike-St-98122/unit-307/home/11769
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/1024-E-Pike-St-98122/unit-308/home/11770
another ???
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/2112-3rd-Ave-98121/unit-300/home/12306003
unit + garage…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/75-S-Main-St-98104/unit-301/home/42843
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/75-S-Main-St-98104/unit-P-9/home/24150
unit + parking + storage…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/2100-3rd-Ave-98121/unit-1002/home/4225
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/2100-3rd-Ave-98121/unit-P-30/home/70822
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/2100-3rd-Ave-98121/unit-S93/home/32585
don’t know what this one is…but it’s not a condo.
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/515-1st-Ave-W-98119/unit-COM/home/71961
another head scratcher…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/1916-N-46th-St-98103/home/117358
Lord only knows what this one is…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/3824-Ashworth-Ave-N-98103/home/120246
double unit…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/80-S-Jackson-St-98104/unit-204/home/39873
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/80-S-Jackson-St-98104/unit-206/home/39875
unit + two garage spots…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-PHA/home/61201
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-GA25/home/68679
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/601-Belmont-Ave-E-98102/unit-GA24/home/51457
more head scratchers…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/402-30th-Ave-E-98112/home/146943
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/404-30th-Ave-E-98112/home/147137
another unit + a $7773/psf parking spot
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/80-Vine-St-98121/unit-203/home/33847
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/80-Vine-St-98121/unit-P9/home/51973
a $2,345,586 1970’s 722 sf 1BR…
http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/750-N-143rd-St-98133/unit-108/home/12304608
Not blaming Redfin or Matt Goyer in any way FWIW.
Tim…
There are some nice examples in your spam bucket…my last post didn’t go through.
feel free to fact check them.
The MLS database is extremely misleading. I have seen many homes were re-listed, but the days on the markets re-set to zero. It is a clever-way to cook the book and paint a much brighter ambiance to uninformed buyers. Almost every house in MLS mingles the basement square footage, finished or unfinished as total square footage. Some houses include garage, loft of finished attics as square footage. There are no universal standards for counting the square-footage or days on the market. Worse, a significant number of houses were eventually de-listed (I say more than 70% of the outstanding listed properties nowadays; they improved the final statistics of liquidity.
Beware of silent dogs and still water.
EconE @ 9,
Thanks, recovered and restored @ 8.
I was JK EconE. I know there are a ton of data glitches in the tax records, but I commend the Redfin crew for putting this together. For those who are not inclined to pull records themselves it is a real asset.
And for the questions about why sold $/Sqft is higher than asking – it’s because so many sales are not going through at the low end (according to Ardell’s comments over at RCG)
cr@p. thats 2x today I’ve referred to her posts…
Rental story coming to a city near you:
The Arizona Republic. “With more affordable homes entering the rental market, apartment complexes are struggling to sign leases. Between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008, median rents in metro Phoenix’s median rent dropped 9.3 percent to $939, according to apartment-research firm Investment Instruments Corp. It was the steepest decline reported in the 12 largest U.S. metro areas.”
“‘The single-family rentals are impacting our ability to rent apartments because they are directly competitive,’ said Mike Clow, senior VP for property management at Gray Clow Residential, which owns luxury apartment complexes in Phoenix and Tempe.”
“Nicholas Ingle, director of capital markets for Phoenix-based Hendricks and Partners, the nation’s largest apartment-sales and research firm, estimates that nearly 9,000 homes are currently in the rental market, far higher than the usual 1,000-2,000.”
“‘So many of those owners are just desperate to rent them for whatever rent they can get,’ Ingle said. ‘Those homes should be renting for so much more money.’”
“Compounding that rental situation is the influx of condominium conversions back into the rental market. ‘We still have an oversupply of failed and broken condo conversions and most of the condo conversion units are rentals,’ said Pete TeKampe, VP, investments for Marcus& Millichap. ‘North Scottsdale actually has experienced very high vacancy rates because of the oversupply of condo-conversion units.’”
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2008/08/12/20080812biz-renters0813-ON.html
Great work, Redfin! Sure, there are errors, but kudos for trying, and I’m sure you’ll fine-tune. With EconE’s help of course!
Hey Matt – can we expect CDOM any time soon?
We are working on a CDOM feature. We hope to show you both the CDOM as well as a complete listing history for the home since its last sale.
GROWTH DETERIORATION
Home selling innovation with more growth?
Or today’s conundrum of wage deterioration [come on, I'm on Econ's side, be fair and take out the top 10% Seattle household incomes and average wages are clearly plummetting] and simultaneous growth with subsequent subprime mess.
First time home buyers in their 20s and 30s are Seattle dinosaurs? I’d assume the top 10% of Seattle’s household incomes with the wage increases aren’t in the housing market any way [they bought in many years or several decades ago], so eliminate this erroneous moot point data.
Great, Matt! I look forward to it.
While it’s interesting to look at sites like Redfin and Zillow, it’s important to remember that unlike commercial office space, residential real estate is NOT sold on a price-per-square-foot basis.
There are MANY other factors that affect the value of a house, such as views, waterfront, location on a busy street, etc. etc.
So take the stats with a HUGE grain of salt.
Steve Tytler
Real Estate Columnist
Everett Herald
Everett Herald
Incidentally, do we know what the figure is or approx. is for the top decile of household income? I would be grateful if anyone could point me towards a breakout of this data. Preferably in-city but per MSA would be informative too.
What would be the difference?
Should I Ignore the fact that some condo’s downtown are wishing for $700+ psf when comps are selling for $600?
Doesn’t location affect Commercial RE?
Try picking up an office over at Carillon Point rather than Everett. More expensive no?
So are the houses and condos….in $’s PSF.
Civil Servant – I did a post on the forums looking at the Census’s Community Survey:
http://seattlebubble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=623&hilit=income
Both MSA and Seattle specific (and Bellevue).
To answer your question, 10% of households make 150K or greater in Seattle, or they did in 2005. I think there is more up-to-date info if you follow the link.
Sweet! Thanks so much, Bili.
I’d just like to mention that this fudfon stuff is a direct result of work Tim’s done here.
This site has become extremely relevant in the world of Real Estate and in my opinion changed the way people view properties in general.
The fact other people copy the work is a compliment.
A further fact is that this site attracts people in an open way, even if they get slammed in the process. I’m kind of missing that openness.
The power of the internet is slamming down on the real estate industry in full force. About time. Way to go Redfin! ( and Seattlebubble of course ). The Kodak moment ( film or digital ) is here, the ones that do not underastand, accept it and embrace it will struggle.
I have to agree that this site has pulled me into reading it. It is interesting to read all the different opinions on this site as well as on other blogs and sites.
Patient,
Do you think that these sites make a big difference to people trying to buy or sell real estate? What I am asking is will MOST people take the time to read these blogs before making their decisions?
For example there are a few different views on this site. However the majority of the views appear to be similiar.
What do you think?
What I think? I think Redfin and groundbreaking sites like it will increase their market share rapidly in the next couple of years. Blogs like SeattleBubble can play a role by giving feedback from interrested consumers towards the internet brokers, that what I think. What do you think?
After leaving the last comment it seems to me that most people would miss the concept of rodfon. There have always been discount brokerages. The difference is, in the past, the commission was paid after the transaction was done. What Kelman and others did was convince Congress to allow the commission to be disbursed at closing. The rebate can now be paid to the buyer or seller as a portion of costs to be included in the transaction.
In the process the over all commission system was villified. What everyone had been trying to avoid up to that point was transactions going to the lowest bidder. Paying some one to do business with you works on a volume basis.
When large Real Estate companies tried to do this many years ago smaller companies cried foul. The term was the “Wal Marts of Real Estate.”
So the concept of radfon has always been around, Ray is correct it will change the face of Real Estate, not for the better, and now they have new charts and graphs, the concept developed by Tim.
David, I think it’s the internet that changes the face of Real Estate not discount brokers per say. It’s the power of the internet coupled with alternative business models to the old agent formula. And yes, I think it’s for the better. A lot better
It depends on what better means. People complain about the services they receive for 6% commissions. I agree that is a high number for getting nothing. It may be better to pay less for getting nothing.
The problem is the service people get. The consumer still gets nothing, but pays less for it. The standard then becomes nothing.
Transparency to me means informed choices. When I look at properties people go with me. I get advice, I use agents in some cases. When I pay an agent I expect value. When I pay I want something of value. When I pay for a second set of eyes I want an eyes on value. I want knowledge, wisdom, experience, and negotiable value.
Otherwise it’s just colored lights on a computer screen.
I find myself agreeing with David Losh more and more. Does that mean there’s something’s wrong with me?
I don’t think it’s the internet per se that’s resulting in the successes of places like Redfin or operation’s like 500 Realty…I think it’s more of a response to the fact that many people were dissatisfied getting nothing for their 6%.
Believe it or not, there are some lazy and dishonest realtors out there, and that created the opening for a Redfin. People thought ” This guy did nothing for me for my 6%, and he’s a lying weasel to boot.”, and figured they’ve got as much brains and ability to do research as many realtors.
That said, there are some real estate agents out there willing to do the legwork and the research , have the negotiating skill and know the ropes, and those people are continuing to do well because they’ve earned people’s trust.
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