By The Tim on November 6th, 2009 at 8:00 AM · 56 Comments
Time for the monthly reporting roundup, where I read all the local paper rehashes of the NWMLS press release so you don’t have to.
Here’s a link to this month’s NWMLS press release: Tax credit spurs big surge in Western Washington home sales
Before we get into the roundup, I’d like to take a moment to quote an excerpt from the monthly NWMLS data post from May, which was titled Huge Gap Opening Between Pending and Closed Sales (a subject that I first brought to your attention in August of last year).
The disconnect between pending sales and closed sales grows ever larger. … Something is becoming extremely fishy about the pending sales data.
…it is good to keep in mind when you start reading news reports in the coming weeks about the market supposedly picking back up. It’s an illusion.
Here’s a graphical representation of the 2009 sales illusion:
Pending sales peaked at 2,447 in June, while so far closed sales have not made it higher than 1,758—a nearly 30% discrepancy. So far this year there have been at total of 20,025 pending SFH sales in King County, but only 12,986 actual closed sales. In other words, more than a third (35%) of pending sales have yet to materialize into closed sales. That difference is typically well under 10%.
Find me a newspaper that reported this growing issue last August.
Click below for this month’s roundup of gawking at the tax credit.
[Read more →]
Categories: News
Tags: Benbow, Boone, bottom-calling, Crellin, Everett_Herald, JohnLScott, Kearsley, Olympian, Pryne, reporting_roundup, Seattle_PI, Seattle_Times, Spratt, Tacoma_Tribune, tax credit
By The Tim on September 7th, 2009 at 6:00 AM · 48 Comments
Thanks to PAX and the holiday weekend, our regular schedule is all messed up. So here’s the reporting roundup a couple days late.
First up, an excerpt from the NWMLS press release: Northwest MLS brokers report brisk activity, multiple offers, "irrational delays" by lenders
Pending sales around Western Washington during August jumped nearly 21 percent from a year ago and inventory dropped more than 18 percent, according to new figures from Northwest Multiple Listing Service. MLS member-brokers say those indicators, along with signs of stabilizing prices, set the stage for brisk activity in the next few months as first-time buyers try to take advantage of the Nov. 30 deadline for tax credits.
“The typical August cool down in the market did not happen this year,” observed NWMLS director Kathy Estey, managing broker at John L. Scott’s office in downtown Bellevue. She said agents are busy with both first-time and move-up buyers and they’re reporting multiple offers on homes priced up to $700,000.
Brokers reported 7,539 pending sales (offers made and accepted but not yet closed) for August, up 20.7 percent from a year ago. That volume outgained July’s total by 260 transactions.
In the four-county Puget Sound region, pending sales of single family homes and condominiums (combined) surged 25.7 percent from a year ago.
I’m only going to say this once in this post, since I get tired of repeating myself. The “pending sales” statistic published by the NWMLS has become virtually useless. It has of little to no use in reliably predicting actual closed sales volume this year.
That said, given that the NWMLS led off their press release with the big headline pending sales nonsense, it is (sadly) no surprise that a number of lazy local media outlets dutifuly repeated their breathless claims.
Read on to find out which local press outlets were basically just press release rehash factories this month, and which ones spent some time to do some actual reporting.
[Read more →]
Categories: News
Tags: Beeson, Boone, Crellin, Everett_Herald, JohnLScott, Kearsley, Olympian, Pryne, reporting_roundup, Rolph, Scott, Seattle_PI, Seattle_Times, Spratt, Tacoma_Tribune
