Full disclosure: The Tim is employed by Redfin.
Last Friday Redfin released their July market data. Here’s an excerpt from the narrative (which I did not write this month):
Redfin Capitol Hill Team Lead agent Allie Howard says: “I give the summer of 2011 an “F” for frustration! Sellers are frustrated as prices of comparable homes remain low and many cannot afford to sell at current price levels. Those sellers who must move on are opting to rent their homes until the market recovers. Buyers are frustrated as well due to the lack of available inventory. When something desirable appears on market, they find themselves competing against other buyers for the better homes. It may still be a ‘buyer’s market,’ but you have to be fast to reel in the winners.”
Here’s this month’s sweet Google Fusion Tables zip code heat map. You can zoom in/out, and click on a zip code to get the detailed July numbers for that region.
Note that the color being displayed on each zip code is based on whichever type of home (SFH, condo, townhouse) sold the most in that zip code.
In order to roll sales, inventory, and prices all into a single “heat” number, I created a new “heat index” for Redfin, where a market with 6.0 months of supply (end of month inventory / one-month closed sales) and +5.0% year-over-year appreciation in the median price per square foot translates to an index value of 75. For the full details, see the “Methodology” footnote on the Redfin post.
Also included in the Redfin post is the “top 5 hottest neighborhoods.” The list will probably look familiar: Magnolia, Ballard, Northwest Seattle, Queen Anne, and Northeast Seattle.
Again, I’ll probably postthe usual Tableau map later this week. For now though, enjoy the Google map.