New from Redfin: Neighborhood stats, sliced and diced

The real estate website Redfin has added a local data feature that is worth checking out. It is full of neighborhood-level pricing and listing trends drawn from MLS data, the kind of stuff that levels the playing field between real estate professionals and the rest of us. Here's how Redfin describes the upgrade on its blog.

You can check out the data page for the city of Los Angeles here, but I'll also reproduce some highlights. The graph at right shows prices of single-family homes in Los Angeles expressed in dollars per square foot; the solid line is listing prices, the dotted line is sales prices.  Takeaway: As fast as listing prices are falling, sales prices are falling much faster.

Data highlights from Redfin's Los Angeles page (remember, this is just the City of L.A.):

Total homes and condos for sale: 16,859
Bank and MLS-listed foreclosures: 1,698
Median list price: $475K
Median sold price: $400K
Median days on Redfin: 85
Percentage of homes with price reductions: 43.9%
Median total reduction in price: 9.3%

You can drill down further to a smaller geographical area, picking other Southern California cities, or within cities you can choose defined neighborhoods or ZIP Codes.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this one. My inclination is to make the Los Angeles page into a weekly feature here, just running the stats you see above, as yet another way to take the pulse of the local market.

--Peter Viles

--Graphic credit: Redfin.com

Comments

[Dougmc]

The difference between listing prices and sales prices may be greater than the chart suggests because of the lag time between contract signing and closing. The sales figures are "time stamped" according to the closing date, but were set months before hand when the contract was signed (many months before, in the case of REO sales). In a declining market, the sales prices being established by new contracts in any given month are lower than the sales prices of properties closing in that month (which were established months before). Therefore, the gap between listing prices and concurrently contracted-for sales prices is probably larger than reflected in the graph.

[Laker]

This is excellent information from an excellent source of data and RE info such as Redfin.
$ per square foot is a very good metric which might not provide a true valuation, but is much better than median price.
My take from this is that currently Median Sold Price/Sq. Ft.* is $277. Taking into account that in most cases as there are more square feet in the house, each one cost slightly less.
That is 3000 sq ft house might fetch $250 per sf while very similar condition 2500 sf house will fetch $270 per sf.

So, if you want to place an offer on a house, $277 is the current median, so I would offer $250 per sf MAX.
A good deal will be $200 per sf or less.
Also, 10% is the current difference between the listing price and the sales price. That means never ever offer anything within 10% of asking, sure not asking price or more.
Start by offering at least 20% less than asking. The worst should be 10%, but ideally you want to be in the 20% range to make it a deal.
In any case, buy with Redfin and get about 2% of the purchase price cash back...

[latesummer2009]

Peter,

More information for the public is better. We are slowly but surely, deseminating real estate information to further educate the public. With blogs such as yours, the real estate industry is evolving where vital information is finally in the hand of the many, and not just the few. Redfin adds one more piece to the real estate puzzle. I have begun breaking down real estate declines on the Westside of LA, which up until this point, have been lagging the greater LA area. Last July, we began to see significant drops in affluent areas such as Brentwood, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu and Venice. Take a look for yourself at WestsideREmeltdown.

http://www.westsideremeltdown.blogspot.com