Seattle Bubble

News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.

Seattle Bubble - News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.

Entries Tagged as 'months of supply'

April Neighborhoods Months of Supply Interactive Update

By The Tim on May 13th, 2009 at 9:25 AM · 133 Comments

Here’s your look at March’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. In place of our usual boring static charts, this month we are proud to expand our usage of interactive data visualizations from Tableau Software into a new monthly update.

Unfortunately, due to a change in definition by the NWMLS last July, the number of active listings will be lower than a year ago, while the number of pending sales will be higher, causing the months of supply to be lower than it would otherwise have been.

Summary

April MOS for King County as a whole dipped down further into so-called “seller’s market” territory at 4.5.

Here’s a year-over-year comparison for each NWMLS neighborhood. Again, take the below comparison with a giant grain of salt, since the NWMLS has changed the way they count listings and pendings since last year. As an example of how this data may be skewed, if there were 6,000 active listings last year (300 of which—5%—were “subject to inspection”) and 1,000 pending sales, we would have had 6.0 months of supply. However, this year under the new counting method, the same scenario would result in 5,700 active listings and 1,300 pending sales (300 being “pending inspection”), giving us 4.4 months of supply—27% lower.

Year-Over-Year Comparison

Even with the change, most of the Eastside remains above 6 months of supply, while most of the other neighborhoods around King have dropped below 6.

Regional History

Months of supply decreased again in most neighborhoods from March to April, matching the normal seasonal pattern. Just nine of thirty neighborhoods remained in “buyer’s market” territory.

The cumulative MOS for Seattle proper dropped further into “seller’s market” territory at 3.7, while the Eastside as a whole dropped as well, but remained a “buyer’s market” at 6.2.

The three toughest markets for sellers were Enumclaw (300) at 11.3, Downtown Seattle condos (701) at 10.8, and Kirkland–Bridle Trails (560) at 9.9.

The three best markets for sellers as of last month were Central Seattle SW / Beacon Hill (385) at 2.3, Ballard/Greenlake/Greenwood (705) at 2.4, and North Seattle (710) at 2.7.

→ 133 CommentsCategories: Neighborhoods
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Seasonally Adjusted Active Supply: A New Measure of Market Virility

By The Tim on April 27th, 2009 at 9:00 AM · 35 Comments

With the increasing disparity between pending and closed sales, using “Months of Supply” as it is traditionally calculated to provide a measure of market “strength” is becoming more and more misleading.

In order to address this issue, I have devised a new measure of market vitality: Seasonally Adjusted Active Supply (SAAS). To determine the SAAS, I am dividing the number of new listings in a given month by the number of closed sales, then multiplying by a seasonal factor between 0.7 and 2.1 to smooth out the strong seasonal variations.

Here’s what the SAAS looks like for King County SFH as far back as we have reliable data:

King County SFH Seasonally Adjusted Active Supply (SAAS)

King County’s SAAS has definitely dropped down off the highs we saw through the winter, when it hit values between 3.3 and 3.4, but March’s SAAS of 2.75 was still higher than January through October of last year. We’re also well above the pre-bubble average of 1.85.

With Months of Supply we generally consider a value of 6.0 to be a “balanced market.” For Seasonally Adjusted Active Supply, I would put the “balanced market” point at about 2.0.

Here’s a comparison of SAAS and MOS for the same period as the chart above:

King County SFH SAAS vs MOS

You can see that from 2000 through about midway through 2006, the two tracked fairly close to each other. In mid-2007 as the bubble begain to burst, MOS shot up much faster than SAAS, perhaps due to the rapidly increasing number of “stale listings.” Since last December as the gap between pending and closed sales has continued to widen, MOS has fallen much faster than SAAS.

SAAS seems to me to be a decent way to track the overall market action. I’d love to hear your feedback on this method and the picture that is painted by this data.

[Update:] Hit the jump below for a few more graphs of the SAAS data requested by readers.

[Read more →]

→ 35 CommentsCategories: Features · Statistics
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March Neighborhoods Months of Supply Update

By The Tim on April 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 AM · 45 Comments

[Note: Stay tuned to this space next month, when we'll be introducing another round of sweet Tableau charts.]

Here’s your look at March’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.

March MOS for King County as a whole dipped down into so-called “seller’s market” territory at 5.70 (compared to 6.19 for March 2008). The record run of county-wide 6+ MOS has ended at eighteen 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 thirteen-month period of March 2008 through March 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). The charts 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 overstating the magnitude of the “seller’s market.”

We’ll start off with the chart that lets you directly compare each area’s MOS to its value one year ago. March 2008 is in red, and 2009 is in blue.

KC SFH MOS: March '08 & March '09

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.

[Read more →]

→ 45 CommentsCategories: Neighborhoods · Statistics
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February Neighborhoods Months of Supply Update

By The Tim on March 30th, 2009 at 5:01 PM · No Comments

[Note: I apologize again for the tardiness of this regularly-scheduled set of charts. Same story as this month's Around the Sound update—working on a cool new feature that wasn't quite ready this month.]

Here’s your look at February’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.

February MOS for King County as a whole dipped slightly down to 7.54 (compared to 6.14 for February 2008). The record run of 6+ MOS is now eighteen months. Recall that the previous record was around 6 months in the winter of ‘94-’95.

In the graphs below, you’re looking at the MOS for the “Res Only” data from the NWMLS King County Breakout pdfs for the thirteen-month period of February 2008 through February 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). The charts 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. February 2008 is in red, and 2009 is in blue.

KC SFH MOS: February '08 & February '09

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.

[Read more →]

→ No CommentsCategories: Statistics
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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.

KC SFH MOS: January '08 & January '09

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.

[Read more →]

→ 86 CommentsCategories: Statistics
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December Neighborhoods Months of Supply Update

By The Tim on January 26th, 2009 at 7:34 AM · 43 Comments

Time (or past time) to take a look at December’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.

December MOS for King County as a whole came in at yet another record-high 9.56 (compared to 7.54 for December 2007 and 8.75 for November), bringing the record run of 6+ MOS to sixteen 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 January 2008 through December 2008. 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. Also keep in mind that whatever the reason, pending sales have become increasingly disconnected from closed sales recently, 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. December 2007 is in red, and 2008 is in blue.

KC SFH MOS: Eastside

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.

[Read more →]

→ 43 CommentsCategories: Statistics
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