Great visualization of the mess we’re in.
Entries from February 28th, 2009
The Crisis of Credit Visualized
By The Tim on February 28th, 2009 at 2:25 PM · 28 Comments
→ 28 CommentsCategories: Media
Tags: credit, depression, recession, video
Delistings on the Decline
By The Tim on February 27th, 2009 at 8:36 AM · 69 Comments
Yesterday’s conversation in the comments touched a little bit on homes that are being delisted (taken off the market without selling), so now seems like a good time to post another update to the listings and sales breakdown chart. Below is the breakdown of homes on the market and homes that went off the market last month in King County (SFH only).
For a full explanation of this chart, check out the post What happens to listings.
January’s 1,159 delistings came in 16% lower than the same month last year, a reversal of the trend that had seen dramatically increasing delistings throughout much of 2008. Last month even came in below the 2000-2006 average for January delistings, which was 1,767.
Delistings typically drop as we head into the spring, and there is no reason not to think that will happen this year as well. The number of homes being delisted is still exceeding the number of pending sales, which is still an indication of a slow market, but in January the difference between the two was only 12 (compared to an average difference of 746 the previous three months).
→ 69 CommentsCategories: Statistics
Tags: delisting, inventory, NWMLS, relisting, sales, stale listings
Reminder: No News is Bad News Town Hall Discussion Tonight
By The Tim on February 26th, 2009 at 12:00 PM · 29 Comments
Just a brief reminder that the community-driven town hall discussion “No News is Bad News: Seattle As a No-Newspaper Town?” is happening tonight at 7:00 PM in the Bertha Landes Room at Seattle’s City Hall.
What it is: A free, community discussion to discuss the future of journalism and news media in the Seattle area.
What it isn’t: A “save the newspapers” effort.
“No News is Bad News” is an informal organization formed by Seattle-area bloggers. Tonight’s event is free, but registration is required.
The event will be moderated by KIRO’s Dave Ross. Panelists include NYU professor Jay Rosen, P-I columnist Art Thiel, UW professor Kathy Gill, and Seattle Times online Director of Content Cory Haik.
For more information or to submit a question for the panel, visit the No News is Bad News website.
Update: If you missed the event, you can view a video archive of the event on Ustream or feel free to check out the notes I took with my fancy new LiveScribe Pulse pen, which are indexed to an audio recording of the event. Just click on any of the green text to hear what was being said at the time I wrote it.
→ 29 CommentsCategories: News
Tags: NNBN, Seattle_PI, Seattle_Times
January Neighborhoods Months of Supply Update
By The Tim on February 26th, 2009 at 6:00 AM · 86 Comments
This is coming later than usual this month due to Bottom-Calling Week, but let’s take a look at January’s “Months of Supply” for the 30 NWMLS areas in King County. For an explanation of what months of supply means, please refer to the original neighborhood MOS breakdown post. Also, view a map of these areas here.
January MOS for King County as a whole backed down from December’s record high, coming in at 7.77 (compared to 7.54 for January 2008), bringing the record run of 6+ MOS to seventeen months.
In the graphs below, you’re looking at the MOS for the “Res Only” data from the NWMLS King County Breakout pdfs for the one-year period of February 2008 through January 2009. The bar graph is centered vertically on 6.0 MOS, so that it is easier to visually tell the difference between a seller’s and buyer’s market (i.e. – shorter bars mean a more balanced market). I had been trying to keep the graphs on the same vertical scale, but with MOS skyrocketing in a handful of areas in the Eastside and Vashon, I gave up on that. The charts still all have the King County aggregate figure plotted in red on the far right.
Note that there are a few areas that appear to have no bar at all for a given month—this represents an MOS value at or close to 6.0. It is also important to remember that whatever the reason, over twenty-five percent of pending sales are not making it to closing, which means that these statistics are likely understating the magnitude of the “buyer’s market.”
We’ll start off with the chart that lets you directly compare each area’s MOS to its value one year ago. January 2008 is in red, and 2009 is in blue.
Following below are the breakouts for SW King, SE King, Seattle, N King, and the Eastside, as well as a summary of this month’s data.
→ 86 CommentsCategories: Statistics
Tags: graphs, months of supply, Neighborhoods, NWMLS, Statistics
Case-Shiller Tiers: Low Tier Falls Over 15% in a Year
By The Tim on February 25th, 2009 at 6:00 AM · 117 Comments
Let’s check out the three price tiers for the Seattle area, as measured by Case-Shiller. Remember, Case-Shiller’s “Seattle” data is based on single-family home repeat sales in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through December 2008.
December was downright rough in all three tiers, with the low tier again taking the largest hit—4.2% in a month. The low tier has rewound to August 2005, the middle tier to September 2005, and the high tier to October 2005.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through December 2008.
The low tier also holds the title for largest YOY declines (still). Meanwhile, the high tier moved into second place with a nearly 3-point increase in the YOY drop. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of December – Low: -15.3%, Med: -12.4%, Hi: -13.0%.
Lastly, here’s a decline-from-peak graph like the one posted yesterday, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.
The high tier deviated noticeably from its recent pattern of following the tracks laid by the low and middle tiers, which continued to track each other fairly closely.
It is somewhat unusual that the high tier would be experiencing a larger correction than the low and middle tiers, since it did not see as much of an increase during the bubble. I imagine this might have something to do with the conforming loan limits, but there is really no way to be sure.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 02.24.2009)
→ 117 CommentsCategories: Statistics
Tags: Case-Shiller, Statistics, tiers
Case-Shiller: Yet Another Record Drop in Seattle Home Prices
By The Tim on February 24th, 2009 at 6:50 AM · 96 Comments
The time has come for our regularly scheduled monthly check on the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to December data,
Down 3.6% November to December.
Down 13.4% YOY.
Down 16.7% from the July 2007 peak
Last year prices fell 1.2% from November to December and year-over-year prices were up 0.5%.
It’s interesting to look at the month-to-month changes over the last three months of 2008:
October: -1.4%
November: -2.5%
December: -3.6%
It certainly appears that the price drops are really beginning to accelerate. In 2007 the same months saw month-to-month changes of -0.9%, -1.4%, and -1.2%. So it’s not entirely a seasonal effect going on here.
Unfortunately I’m away from the home office until later this afternoon. I will update this post at that time with the usual graphs.
In the mean time, here’s an ugly chart of the ugly month-to-month numbers:
(Update: Changed the chart above from an area chart to a column chart.)
Update: As promised, here are your regularly scheduled Case-Shiller graphs.
Here’s the usual graph, with L.A. & San Diego offset from Seattle & Portland by 17 months. Portland and Seattle traded places again in December, with the city that still has an NBA team turning in a very slightly smaller year-over-year loss. The YOY declines in SoCal also continued the upward trend that began last month, falling “just” 24.8% in San Diego and 26.4% in Los Angeles.
Note: This graph is not intended to be predictive. It is for entertainment purposes only.
Here’s the graph of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities:
In December, eight of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities experienced smaller year-over-year drops than Seattle (two more than in November). Denver at -4.0%, Dallas at -4.3%, Cleveland at -6.1%, Boston at -7.0%, Charlotte at -7.2%, New York at -9.1%, Atlanta at -12.0%, and Portland at -13.1%. Phoenix had the largest year-over-year drop yet again, with prices falling barely short of 34% in a single year.
Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve cities whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.
In the seventeen months since the price peak in Seattle prices have declined 16.7%. The decline in Seattle deviated from the trail blazed by Phoenix 13 months earlier, for the worse. Seattle’s present rate of decline from the peak is most similar to that seen in Tampa, Florida.
Here’s the “rewind” chart. The horizontal range is selected to go back just far enough to find the last time that Seattle’s HPI was as low as it is now. This gives us a clean visual of just how far back prices have retreated in terms of months.
Seattle’s Case-Shiller value for December 2008 of 160.19 came in just above its September 2005 value of 158.99. In one month, prices gave up four months of prior gains. Prices have now “rewound” over three years.
Check back tomorrow for a post on the Case-Shiller data for Seattle’s price tiers.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 02.24.2009)
→ 96 CommentsCategories: Statistics
Tags: behind the cycle, California, Case-Shiller, graphs, Statistics
