L.A. listing prices slip another $900

Listing prices in greater L.A. slipped by $900 over the past week as inventory held steady, as the housing market showing signs of possible stabilization, according to Housing Tracker's weekly analysis of MLS listings.

Numbers: Median listing prices slipped from $449,900 to $449,000. That's a decline of 17.6% over the past year. Inventory of for-sale homes and condos held steady at 42,532, and is now trending just 8.8% ahead of year-ago levels.

Signs of stabilization? Possibly. Does that mean we're near a bottom? Not necessarily. This is an unusual market, with foreclosure sales taking a greater market share each month, now closing in on 40% of the California market, according to DataQuick's report on April sales. There's no sign the wave of foreclosures has crested.  We haven't seen a market like this before. Uncharted territory.

Date               Median listing price                      Inventory

4/06               $579,666                                         27,251
4/07               $545,000                                         35,489
5/07               $545,000                                         38,297
6/07               $540,000                                         40,766 (up 20.4% y/y)
7/07               $535,000                                         42,685 (up 14.5% y/y)
8/07               $529,000                                         44,483 (up 13.6% y/y)
9/07               $520,000                                         46,414 (up 16.9% y/y)
10/07             $510,000                                         46,603 (up 15.6% y/y)
11/07             $499,900                                         46,503 (up 19.0% y/y)
12/07             $495,000 (down 10.0% y/y)         43,174 (up 28.2% y/y)
1/08               $479,900 (down 12.6%)               40,850 (up 33.3% y/y)
2/08               $475,000 (down 13.5%)               43,625 (Up 38.3%)
3/08               $464,900 (down 15.5%)               42,098 (Up 31.4%)
4/08               $450,000 (down 17.4%)               42,430 (up 16.7%)
5/5/08           $450,000 (down 17.4%)                42,647 (up 13.7%)
5/12/08         $449,900 (down 17.4%)                42,532 (up 11.1%)
5/19/08         $449,000 (down 17.6%)                 42,532 (up 8.8%)

 Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com.

Comments

[tew]

We're not at the bottom - we haven't even had a head fake / DCB yet. We need to see Y/Y inventory shrink for a month or two and mo/mo prices increase at the same time. That will be "big news" and will induce buying, which will fade as latent supply comes on and the next leg down proceeds. There has been nothing like capituation yet.

[Inland Empire]

High desert list price have official fallen low enough to attracted some first time buyers. Housing is starting to become affordable for your average two wage earners household. I say this house is closer to 1999 prices. I give you 15500 Jojoba Ln Victorville Ca. last sold on 4/27/2007 for $349k this a nice area, and the home is 4/2 1648 sqft…Drum roll please and I’m adding the link for your verification

http://vvmls.rapmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll?
APPNAME=Victorvalley&PRGNAME=MLSPropertyDetail&
ARGUMENTS=-N691854782,-N147123,-N,-A,-N0

When they get down to this price it is getting close to post time. Matter fact I think I hear Trevor Denman “They’re off and running”!!!!!!

[pugtv]

ShockG,

We're still waiting for you to show a little courage. Give us your estimate on where the bottom is. What is your estimated bottom price? Use Dataquick, Case Schiller or whatever index you prefer ... just spell it out.

I hope you're not all talk. I actually took you seriously for a few days. Unfortunately, you haven't backed up what you've said. All I've heard from you so far is used car salesman talk.

If you're not willing to commit to a number, then please stop knocking other people like Laker. At least they have the courage to make public where they stand.

[tggr]

Well, remember this folks. The Fed is all but done lowering rates and they only have one direction to go come next year. We are at a "bottom" in terms of interest rates - no doubt about that....

[no importa]

A typical 4-bedroom house in Victorville went for $150K AT MOST in 1999, certainly not over $200K.

[huh?]

How is a bottom even conceivable when foreclosures are accelerating and seasonally high rates of purchases are only high enough to keep inventory at a standstill?

What happens when summer ends and people who can't pay the bills are still losing their houses?

[Fred]

The bottom is a mathematically-solvable number. It is not subject to whims and fancies of individual buyers. We are talking macroeconomics here, people. There is only a small subset of "fence-sitters" who are waiting to jump in. Everyone else is not being invited to the fence, because they don't have the requisite 20% down payment. They won't until median prices fall in line with median incomes. This will happen when the market hits roughly 2001 prices. The only variable here is if banks suddenly decide to start whoring out credit to anyone and everyone again. This seems monumentally financially unsound for any institution, and I just can't see it happening.

[Laker]

pugtv,
Shockg is not only all talk, but constantly using attacks to defend himself. He is truly acting as a used house sales person working on commission only, and with times like these wishes he could have gotten a minimum wage.
I'm also waiting for his numbers are examples to justify his stand. For the last couple of weeks he claimed we indeed reached the bottom...as the listing price was stuck at $450,000.

And Peter, i think you should add some footnotes on the bottom of your tables that will explain to those mathematically challenged that if YoY is +0.0001% it means that inventory is rising...slow but rising....+8.8% is rising! (If your paycheck is 8.8% higher than last year, it means you are getting paid more than last year...)

Inland Empire,
The house in victorville selling for $92,000 and last sold for $349k which was obviously included some appraisal fraud..but still 74% hair cut (more like lipo suction surgery). The asking price is $55 per square foot...for new construction....WOW. I guess there are plenty of empty houses there so there is no rental market. Essentially, you can buy it, but could only find a renter willing to pay you peanuts, as they can just squatter in next door house for free....This house could rent for $300 per month...the ,mortgage would be about $600 for fixed rate add taxes and insurance to be about $700. Amazing that it still does not pencil out....but pretty close...

[Laker]

Inland Empire,
i forgot to mention, that if you look at the listing picture, you see a huge high voltage transmission line stand. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to pay $55 per square foot and get cancer...

[realist]

The Fed rate is not your loan rate....unless you are still doing that ARM stuff....It is tied to the Treasury rates....

Just keep on letting the market fall, that ll kill the economy via lack of consumer spending and we ll be all out of jobs renting like the 67 percent that do so in L.A. historically. Then interest goes up and you wont be able to qualify for a loan due to your job loss....Either way, just get it over with and buy while your credit is OK.

[Arti]

All this talk about bottoms and the crashing of listing prices everywhere in LA . . . except in West LA/Santa Monica, where list prices for detached homes are as high as they were in 2005 at the height of the bubble. The discussion needs to turn to those areas now.

[Nelcisco]

On the code and ethics section of the Ca RE exams its is said that realtors are required to sell a home no more than 3x the household income or they're acting in an unethical manner.

Lets see...$449,000 median price, that means median household incomes ought to be @ $149,666. Back in January the data showed the median income in L.A. was about $62k or $63k, can someone clearify that please!

In any event lets say 65k, based on that house prices need to come down to $195k.... gee, I don't know, does anyone think it can ever get that low or will average household income ever come up to $149k anytime soon? with lay-offs and the outsourcing of jobs out of the country.

[E]

Oh yeah...we have a way to go. I pay little attention to listing prices however...or medians. It's really just a case of simple math.

Wait for the Alt-A and Prime ARM's of all flavors to reset.

A whole pile-o-dung is going to be dumped on the next administrations laps...and it wouldn't matter if it was a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or Alien leadership. I don't know who it will be and don't know what their "actions" will be...but if they start throwing money at the situation hand over fist it certainly won't make me wan't to buy a house. It will make me want to buy gold.

[IToldu2CashOut]

We are just in the eye of the storm.

[Garrett]

Okay, this one's a no-brainer. Its spring and look at the fantastic stabilization last spring (between 4/07-5/07) and then, booyah, the bottom fell out. It should do the same or worse this year. If we're stabilizing it will hold through September.

[mbob]

The Hilo Hawaii tsunami back around '60 or so had a sad episode: all the locals watched the fast receding ocean strand many sizeable fish. They rushed out to pick them up. Then the water came back in much faster than a person could run. Many perished.

Analogy? Listen to lefty -- buy now.

[Cal]

Starting to see more chatter on the broker boards about Indymac. No idea if true, but usually when there is smoke there is fire. Might be an interesting couple of weeks. They are also one of the higher CD rate banks, usually a sign of stress.

[nic]

Look at the 25th percentile numbers!

329,900 -> 325,000 a $4,900 drop!

We've seen 5k drops before but the percentage change increases.

[Semphris]

Its just a bear point in the market. The prices simply declined enought to catch the interest of some of the buyers. Once that well drys up there will be a bit of a shock as it starts to dip again. HPI comes out in 2 days. Lest see how that looks.

By the way. Even at the bottom, the market will be bleak and the mechanics try to fix themselves. The last time it took 5 years to recover.

[Greg]

Does anyone remember the 'buy low, sell high' maxim? The real estate market seems to follow an alternate logic - at least for the majority. The smart rich people I know are buying now. This may not be the bottom of the market but 'timing the market' is a sure way to lose out. If it is not the bottom, it is surely far from the top and that is a good time to buy for a long term investment. Those hoping to 'time the market' will be buying in droves once everyone acknowleges the bottom of the market was reached last week, last month or last year. Of course they will actually not be buying anywhere close to the bottom of the market. They will just be buying from those smarter and braver than them: smart, rich people.

[Bob Warren]

If you plot median sales price by the number of days since January 1 2007, the result looks pretty linear. The best fitting straight line to the data points accounts for over 98% of the variability, indicating that the trend is indeed linear. If one assumes that the linear trend will continue until the end of the year, a median list price of $383,958 is predicted.

[caliguy2699]

You gotta give shockg a break. Dude bought at the peak and is wishing for bubble days again.

[loveMEsomeME]

Greg many smart rich people lose money. Recessions don't happen when poor people lose money, they happen when "smart" rich people lose money. In this case it is even worse because the middle class got greedy and has joined the "smart" rich and thought property always goes up even though that has never EVER been the case. Us "poor" people suffer from a recession (ie: lose job, higher gas and food prices, etc....) but it happens when "smart" rich people go Lucile Ball on us and think they have a way to make money easier and faster than before (ie: real estate bubble, internet bubble, etc....). So forgive me Greg if I don't jump in with your "smart" rich friends and buy now. Maybe a "dumb" poor rube like me will take his chances and listen to history and fundamentals to decide when to buy. While none of us nows when or where the bottom is, none of us have to miss it. Once it is there it will be relatively flat. We are not watching the price of the iphone. When those are gone they are gone but housing inventory is going no where. When it hits normal we then can start to look for a bottom and then us "dumb" poor people can join your "smart" rich friends and buy the same house they bought but for at least 10-15% discount from today, if not more. So Greg, quit pretending you have "friends" and just tell me what you think. And finally Greg, I had these same type of friends over the last couple of years and most of them are involved in a short sale now so now they are not quite as "smart" as they once were.

[tealeaf]

Does anyone remember the 'buy low, sell high' maxim? The real estate market seems to follow an alternate logic - at least for the majority. The smart rich people I know are buying now. This may not be the bottom of the market but 'timing the market' is a sure way to lose out. If it is not the bottom, it is surely far from the top and that is a good time to buy for a long term investment. Those hoping to 'time the market' will be buying in droves once everyone acknowleges the bottom of the market was reached last week, last month or last year. Of course they will actually not be buying anywhere close to the bottom of the market. They will just be buying from those smarter and braver than them: smart, rich people.

Posted by: Greg | May 20, 2008 at 08:52 AM

Greg: Go to the Manhattan Beach confidential blog and read what "smart rich people" are doing in that zip code. They sold, rented, and are waiting.

http://www.shortenurl.com/5zolb

A fool and his money soon part - looks like your friends are not as smart as you/they think they are.

[puckhead]

The listing price trend has been the same for a few months now. 75% percentile you’re holding steady. 50% percentile you’re seeing slight drops. 25% percentile, drop your pants and hold still…………