What’s The Housing Bubble Inventory In Your Area?
One reader wants to talk about what’s for sale. “Let’s talk inventory, inventory, inventory. Just glancing over some numbers looks like they are growing rapidly. Please post examples from your area. It really does appear that superbowl was a kick off for everyone to put their place on the market.”
Another added, “As others have mentioned, the San Diego inventory is right around where it was right before the holidays (after taking a dip due to expired listings, etc.), now just shy of 16,500. In the last several weeks, it was growing by about 50-150/day; now it’s around 0-100/day. The record high was 19,000; the corresponding value for today (adjusted for population growth, as per ocrenter’s numbers) would be around 21,400. It may not be long before we hit that number.”
Another said, “16,515 for Greater SD as of right now on ziprealty.com, but who is counting? Expect another update to a higher number this evening; it seems like they have to revise the number upwards several times a day now to keep up with the swelling torrent of new listings.”
And later added, “As promised earlier, it was updated to 16,601 this evening. What is next, hourly updates?”
The town I tracked, the most expensive one in Rhode Island, East Greenwich, the inventory is actually down.
Inventory in greater NY appears to be increasing at about 1.5% per week. This is on top of multi-year high inventory.
Lunarpark, or anyone in the sillicone valley, what is your observation?
Last week inventory really picked up speed. I don’t have my spreadsheet on this computer, but I believe we are approaching the same inventory levels we were seeing around May of last year. Is that normal for February? I don’t know.
Some homes are being snapped up within days of being listed while others are languishing. It feels like the market is holding its breath. Spring will be interesting.
At patrick.net we are discussing the possibility of false “pending”. It is not beyond the realm of imagination that the MLS (or any for sale sign) can be used to give the impression of a hot market.
No doubt. And I am seeing homes relisted with reductions - yet they are listed as “new” listings. Shades of last year.
I was over by Valley Fair mall today. Sign spinners on every corner advertising the latest condo conversions. Drove by - what a dump and empty to boot. Also saw a huge sign for a new condo complex. They were having a “final closeout sale.”
“False pending” concerned me, too. Now net inventory is rising so much, I doubt that false pendings can hide enough anymore to matter that much. Statistics on closings would be useful.
In Silicon Valley, we have a joke: this is SILICON Valley. Los Angeles is SILICONE Valley.
I wrote my own program that downloads data every night from the internet and finds the inventory in Santa Clara. Here is my data. The first number is each line is the number of freestanding resale houses, the second is condos.
02/01/03 156 90
03/01/03 155 101
04/01/03 162 105
05/01/03 180 125
06/01/03 179 130
07/01/03 178 114
08/01/03 163 122
09/01/03 145 100
10/01/03 155 96
11/01/03 129 69
12/01/03 117 60
01/01/04 91 55
02/01/04 84 77
03/01/04 105 63
04/01/04 111 61
05/01/04 129 63
06/01/04 119 46
07/01/04 129 53
08/01/04 114 58
09/01/04 115 61
10/01/04 110 65
11/01/04 104 56
12/01/04 63 46
01/01/05 38 36
02/01/05 44 34
03/01/05 64 49
04/01/05 76 57
05/01/05 99 52
06/01/05 104 66
07/01/05 96 56
08/01/05 94 60
09/01/05 101 90
10/01/05 99 106
11/01/05 115 98
12/01/05 99 84
01/01/06 68 71
02/01/06 70 70
Thanks for the data.
In Silicon Valley, we have a joke: this is SILICON Valley. Los Angeles is SILICONE Valley.
Huh?
Silicon is an element, a primary constituent of sand, used in making computer chips.
Silicone is used in making breast implants.
They are not the same thing.
I know, then the Bay Area has a Silly Con Valley.
sadly inventory went down in East Greenwich, RI.
I’d imagine that a perfectly good reason for declines in inventory (aside from those properties selling) would be people taking homes off the market that are getting little or no activity.
I do not have MLS or ZIPREALTY numbers for my area. I went out this morning and in the 6 mile drive to the nearest town saw clusters of for sale signs half were FSBOs. Previously there had been one for sale sign in the same drive and it has been listed for so long that familiarity had turned it into local color as opposed to an advert.
The inventory in Alexandria, Va has gone up 4~5% just last week. I wish I have stats for other No Va cities.
I’ve been tracking 3 zipcodes since the begging of this year (22030, 20152, 22015 — Fairfax, South Riding, & Burke). Inventory* since 1/1/06 is up anywhere from 16%-40% as of today.
* I use homesdatabase.com. My criterion are: >$100k (filters out rentals), no condos, 3+ BR, garage = “yes”
er…make that “begining” not “begging”
Saratoga,
go to NVFH.com
It lists inventory for every city in No. Va
I’ve been watching the NOVA market. Zip reality has been sending me emails advertising 5 or 6 new listing today that meet my search criteria (townhouse between 250 and 450K). It certainly feels like inventory is building.
It’s just about doubled here in the Hampton Roads area:
9/1/2005 942
9/14/2005 1041
10/1/2005 1079
10/7/2005 1109
10/21/2005 1206
11/1/2005 1214
11/14/2005 990
11/21/2005 1193
11/28/2005 1202
12/7/2005 1208
12/21/2005 1174
1/1/2006 1264
1/7/2006 1378
1/21/2006 1522
2/1/2006 1790
2/7/2006 1,852
Inventory for Irvine, CA holding steady in the high 500s for SFR/condos. Seems about average…been tracking the area since last June.
Many of you have said you’re getting inventory numbers from ZIP Realty, but I don’t see anything on their site that lists inventory on an ongoing basis. Am I missing it, or are you keeping track of those numbers on your own (manually)? Thanks.
If you do a search by city, there is a number of listed homes next to each city.
Inventory for central florida:
Hillsborough 28-Jul 2256
31-Jul 2288
6-Aug 2432
24-Aug 2336
19-Sep 2760
28-Sep 2862
5-Oct 3119
3150
18-Oct 3256
23-Jan 4625
3-Feb 4909
12-Feb 5127
Lake 28-Sep 1630
5-Oct 1747
1668
18-Oct 1732
23-Jan 2308
3-Feb 2403
12-Feb 2474
Orange 28-Jul 1912
31-Jul 1845
6-Aug 2129
24-Aug 2260
19-Sep 2787
28-Sep 2938
5-Oct 3190
3258
18-Oct 3367
23-Jan 4781
3-Feb 4953
12-Feb 5096
Polk 28-Jul 1459
31-Jul 1492
6-Aug 1620
24-Aug 1692
19-Sep 1974
28-Sep 2090
5-Oct 2206
2137
18-Oct 2216
23-Jan 3099
3-Feb 3271
12-Feb 3326
Seminole 26-Jul 697
31-Jul 729
6-Aug 789
24-Aug 869
19-Sep 1041
28-Sep 1063
5-Oct 1122
23-Jan 1113
18-Oct 1167
23-Jan 1411
3-Feb 1477
12-Feb 1498
Volusia 30-Sep 1117
5-Oct 1147
1168
18-Oct 1205
23-Jan 1825
3-Feb 1860
12-Feb 1924
I am hearing radio ads in the seattle area. The point of the ad is that you make more money overall when using a registered real estate agent. I wonder if the FSBO and discount real estate agencies (helpusell, assist2sell….) are cutting into their 5-6% commissions somewhat. If so, what a shame!
Heard the same ads. Funny thing is, I’ve also received not terribly friendly ads for linking our escrow firm to Zillow.com. The stress is mounting I believe.
Inventory of single family homes up in the Portland, Maine area towns of Portland, Falmouth, Cumberland and North Yarmouth has been holding steady for awhile:
9/6/05 352
9/19/05 394
9/29/05 400
11/3/05 425
12/5/05 406
1/3/06 352
2/12/06 354
I have two hypotheses - and both could prove true:
1. It’s too early in this cooler weather market - spring real easte has yet to begin
2. Equity bandits from Boston and New York are coming to Maine at an accelerated rate as they forsee their property values plummeting.
In any event, this should be interesting to watch.
i’m not the expert on portland economics, but it would seem that it is tied to the fortunes of boston.
Cereal -
I’ve thought about this alot, i.e., Portland being tied to Boston’s fortunes. Up until at least now, folks come to Portland from Boston and other expensive markets, and find tremendous value in Maine - much lower prices, and depending on one’s tastes, better quality of life. In the near term, I believe a collapsing Boston could send people to the exits down there and pump Maine up. It doesn’t take a very high percentage of outmigrants from a big city to be consequential in a small city.
Long term, eventually if Boston sinks and Portland stays aloft or even sees price increases, eventually Portland doesn’t seem such a value and Portland prices will recede.
Anyway, just my thoughts - nothing concrete to base them on. But I’m watching.
I cashed out of Santa Barbara real estate in June 2005. I rent in Cape Elizabeth. I have noticed the same stagnant inventory. But there are many sellers in Cape who have taken their homes off the market. I also notice a higher-than-usual number of FSBO (at outrageous prices, btw). My hypothesis is that there is a fair amount of loss avoidance behavior in (potential) sellers. Also I suspect that it is a game of chicken. No one wants to be the first to bring their house on the market at drastically reduced prices. As I’ve reported in this blog before, several homes here went for 50% of their asking price in the Fall. My conclusion: Inventory increases will come late this Spring; sales will be way off in Spring.
Here’s the Temecula - Murrieta, CA area data I’ve been tracking since late July, when I sold my house:
Tem–Mur MLS (per Realtor.com)
7/30/2005 1760
8/5/2005 1741 98.92%
8/13/2005 1761 100.06%
8/20/2005 1779 101.08%
8/27/2005 1804 102.50%
9/23/2005 1847 104.94%
9/28/2005 1867 106.08%
10/13/2005 1877 106.65%
10/25/2005 1891 107.44%
10/29/2005 1895 107.67%
10/30/2005 1904 108.18%
11/082005 1909 108.47%
11/11/2005 1930 109.66%
11/12/2005 1962 111.48%
11/19/2005 1975 112.22%
1/27/2006 1974 112.16%
1/29/2006 1996 113.41%
1/30/2006 2000 113.64%
2/5/2006 2035 115.63%
2/9/2006 2063 117.22%
There was a decrease over the holidays and a significant pickup post New Year’s. These are SFRs only.
Also, according to our local Riverside Press-Enterprise and the MLS manager for the San Gabriel Valley, SGV MLS is showing an increase of 71% YOY.
Also, current inventory stands at 2109 according to Realtor.com and at 2102 according to Zip Realty.
OT, I track foreclosures and pre-foreclosures on RealtyTrac and have seen those numbers more than double since September!
Very interesting article on where to live. Note the comments on renting
http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/where-to-live
Those comments are classic!
Doea anybody have any information on Inventory in long Island NY
Long Island inventory is up huge (Nassau, Suffolk, Queens) since Jan. 1, 2006. There were 23,953 homes listed on MLSLI on 1/2/06, today (2/12/06) there are 27,637. The following are from my own tracking and indicate weekly percentage increases in total LI inventory.
1/9/06 up 3.8%
1/16/06 up 2.8%
1/23/06 up 2.8%
1/30/06 up 2.3%
2/6/06 up 0.6%
2/12/06 up 2.1%
That makes total inventory up 14.4% in 45 days. Oh, BTW, inventory was reported in Newsday as up 58% at the new year. Fun stuff on LI.
Thanks. I knew this area was ridiculously priced. I bought a house in 2003 for twice what the prvious owner paid for it in 1998. I told my wife this is crazy but she wanted to live on the North Shore only. The only good thing is I paid cash or I was scr@wed
Can you please guide me as to how I can email updates on inventory #s on Long Island . Thanks
Go to http://www.mlsli.com. It updates daily, but doesn’t include “exclusives” or “for sale by owner”.
Does anyone know if you can find out who the appraisor is on a particular property? Not sure if it on public record anywhere? They seem to be stealthy.
I’m tracking specific areas under a certain price.
Here’s the numbers, from Help-U-Sell:
Roseville Sacramento Fremont
Date
Sacramento has resumed its 1000 home a month inventory increase. It’s only a matter of time before we break the all time record.
http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2006/02/tracking-sacramento-metro.html
Inventories in South Florida have doubled in a year and sales are down. You can hear the bones of Realtor’s rattling.
I’ve been tracking the same select areas in Sarasota/Manatee counties in FL since July of ‘05. I have been doing searches for 3+br/2+bath in the $300-$400k range. About a 6-fold increase in 7 months:
07/22/05 234
07/26/05 258
08/03/05 260
08/11/05 293
08/21/05 333
08/26/05 347
09/03/05 370
09/09/05 415
09/15/05 435
09/25/05 534
09/30/05 582
10/05/05 605
10/09/05 617
10/17/05 683
10/26/05 709
11/06/05 842
11/12/05 850
11/20/05 891
11/26/05 920
12/03/05 939
12/08/05 949
12/15/05 999
01/06/06 1043
01/10/06 1081
01/13/06 1126
01/17/06 1140
01/24/06 1204
01/27/06 1224
02/02/06 1237
02/06/06 1292
02/11/06 1340
hey flic - nice work! and that seems to be a very encouraging report
I know that the RE/classified section of the local newspaper has exploded. The homebuilders get together and even have full color two page sections featuring them. Portraits of agents are all over the place. However, the billboard marketing featuring loan officers and agencies has died down (I guess it’s no longer in the budget).
As for my street, there were three units for sale when I moved in in November. One sold in December. One went pending last week. One just sits there vacant. I’m curious what my old neighborhood looks like. I might just swing by there instead of doing more important stuff.
BTW: I literally raked leaves today … Centex didn’t get me.
Update: I went by my old neighborhood and was surprised. There were only two houses for sale (there were 11 in October). However, around the houses that closed there are a bunch of cars. It seems as if people grouped together to get into a house.
Now the two neighborhoods next to my old neighborhood had a glut of for sale/open house signs (some were repeaters). I wish I had a handy camera. Also there was one house down the street that has been on the market since July/August.
Orange County, CA
Per Multiple Listing Service:
2/1/06 8,265 homes for sale
2/12/06 8,610 homes for sale +4.7% in 12 days
last year inventory levels were decreasing January through March
OC Resales Per MLS
1/1/06 to 1/31/06 1,735 homes sold where did the buyers go?????
1/1/05 to 1/31/05 2,644 homes sold
1/1/04 to 1/31/04 2,441 homes sold
1/1/03 to 1/31/03 2,521 homes sold
1/1/02 to 1/31/02 2,531 homes sold
1/1/01 to 1/31/01 2,154 homes sold
1/1/00 to 1/31/00 2,033 homes sold
At the risk of evoking the ire of some of the bears on the board:
I’ve noticed at least a few posts mentioning the huge increases since the beginning of the year. We’ve noted in previous discussions, however, that in at least some CA markets (e.g., San Diego) there was a very rapid, very large decline in inventory in late Dec/early Jan (and rapid recovery) that were likely the result of expiring listings. As such, to compare inventory growth since Jan 1 in many cases provides a significant overestimate of the rate of increase. I’m not saying the numbers ain’t growing, I’m just saying we need to be careful about the numbers we provide and read.
True. This also happened on Long Island. To clarify, I have been tracking LI numbers since Aug 05′. Here is what I have which does seem to demonstrate end of the year expirings.
8/29/05 23,447 (my first check)
11/28/05 26,829 homes (highest till present)
12/26/05 25,998 (last check in 05′)
1/2/06 23,953 (first check in 06′, appears to reflect year end expirations)
2/12/06 27,637 (today’s inventory)
So obviously there was some sort of year end expiration en masse of listings on Long Island, but despiute this we are already at numbers not seen throughout all of last fall (800+ more listings), and again, as reported in Newsday, year end inventory numbers for Long Island were up 58% on the year.
In Boston proper, 2600 up from 2200 last week. 150 closed.
Anyone have info on the metro area?
SD is “only” up to 16,630 today. Maybe the market is heating up once again? Sellers, start your engines…
Anyone have data on the Reno/Tahoe area inventory?
There’s no housing bubble here in Washington state’s Columbia Basin. New housing is widely available for roughly $80/sqft., and energy (hydro-electric) is very low cost at 3.7-cents/kw-hr, which usually means a total utility bill under $100.00/mo. for an all electric 1,800-sqft home. If you have a job leveraging a technical college degree then you can comfortably raise a family on one income in this area. Cold winters are the biggest drawback this far north, lasting from October to March.
at 16630, San Diego is at the highest inventory level since the mid 90’s. Inventory took a big hit bottoming out on 1/3/06 at 13980 from around 16500 in 12/2005.
I’m pretty sure we will see 20,000+ listings by spring. Prices should really soar then (NOT)
I thought some might appreciate a longer term perspective on the San Fernando Valley.
Inventory: (I have pulled ’02-04 off a graph so they are approximate)
1/02 3400
7/02 3750
1/03 3300
7/03 2800
1/04 1790
7/04 4750
1/05 2726
7/05 3270
1/06 4904
Notice that January 2006 brings us back up to the highest inventory levels seen in the past 4 years (at least, and probably longer). Yet, this is seasonally very unusual, as you can see the inventory always swells in the summer. This is the highest inventory for a January going back many years. We could see dramatically higher inventory as we come into the spring and summer season if this keeps up.
Sales:
Jan ’99 922
Jan ‘00 964
Jan ‘01 975
Jan ’02 1247
Jan ‘03 1243
Jan ‘04 1197
Jan ‘05 1292
Jan ‘06 897
As you can see, sales have fallen dramatically, back to levels last seen in ’98 at least, maybe longer (I don’t have the data). This also brings the ever-popular “months of inventory” number up to over 5 months! This is a big change from January of last year when it was only 2, and ’04 when it was just 1.5.
Thanks for the great info on this area!!!
According to http://www.ocrealestatefinder.com, which gives every single type of inventory available to mankind (FSBO’s, Foreclosures, Land, New Homes, Old Homes, New Condos, Old Condos…)
According to this site, which comes from the belly of the Orange County Register, and displays the Inventory on the front page for all to see…
Our inventory is now at 15,315.
That number will be updated Monday morning, and I think, could go up by 500 to 1,000.
To give you an idea where things stand in OC, the inventory as of New Years Eve was around 12, 500.
That’s around 3,000 new listings in one month.
Kaboom.
Ah, inventory! My favorite subject!
anyhow, given population differences, I figured the best way to compare one city’s inventory to another is to work out an inventory to population ratio. Now we know Houston, Dallas and Atlanta are not at all in a bubble, mostly by virtue of their high inventory of housing stock. Using ziprealty, I now have those three cities’ inventory to population ratio. Guess what, our favorite bubble markets like Phoenix, Vegas, and the Inland Empire all just reached inventory volumes at par with the likes of Houston and Dallas!!!!!
As far as the inventory volumes are concerned, we’re done, any additional increase is just icing on the cake. Now we just wait for the ever slowing sales figures to grind to a halt. And then we see free-falling prices!!!
Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking
anyhow, given population differences, I figured the best way to compare one city’s inventory to another is to work out an inventory to population ratio.
It is not perfect because places with high ratio may have structurally low homeownership rate.
I think inventory-to-homeowner ratio may be better.
perhaps inventory to household ratio? Given that certain ethnic groups have 10 people per household while others have 3 people per household.
San Luis Obispo County
11/9 1869
11/18 1865
12/17 1827
1/04 1713
1/08 1888
1/11 1893
1/14 1943
1/16 1957
1/19 1969
1/21 1997
1/23 2009
1/27 2012
1/30 2008
2/01 2032
2/10 2041
Central Florida here…
I’ve been tracking three areas irregularly since August. I use a site that says “partial MLS, some brokerages excluded”, so these are not absolute numbers. I use them only for trend.
Format is date, Kissimmee / Celebration / Clermont
8/17/05, 869 / 73 / 390
8/22/05, 873 / 74 / 423
9/12/05, 1164 / 82 / 581
10/17/05, 1410 / 84 / 672
11/15/05, 1723 / 102 / 781
12/13/05. 1986 / 112 / 851
1/9/05, 2031 / 110 / 828
2/8/06, 2345 / 118 / 946
2/12/06, 2373 / 124 / 961
Go Clermont, you’re almost in four figures!
SSSsssssssssssss………