Trulia Report: Mapping Home Price Reductions
By Barry Ritholtz - April 17th, 2011, 12:00PM
Trulia’s Home Offer Report is a a remarkable map — it shows the result of negotiation between homebuyers and sellers. The reveal shows how strong or weak the real-estate market is in every zip code of the country.
The three key metrics:
1) How long a house typically goes before the owner cuts the price;
2) The size of that price reduction;
3) The likelihood that there will be another reduction in price
Fascinating stuff that was not even possible just a few years ago:
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click for larger interactive map
Hat tip Fast Code Design
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April 17th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Interesting concept… wonder about the accuracy of the data. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “it’s a great time to buy” and “property prices in Santa Barbara only ever go up”. The entire real estate profession is incentivized for higher property prices. In my view there is no group of people with less credibility.
I am hopeful that the internet will one day facilitate the useless and overcompensated middlemen from real estate transactions… as it did with travel agents in the travel industry.
April 17th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Caculated Risk regularly passes along “Jim the Realtor’s” video blogs on the state of things in the SoCal market. In this link (from yesterday), Jim states REOs have been “pouring onto the market since the first of the year.” http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/04/jim-realtor-more-reos-hitting-market.html
http://www.condo.com has a price drop feature which tells when a property’s listing price has been cut and by what percentage, very useful for seeing the market in real time.
April 17th, 2011 at 10:41 pm
@socaljoe – I don’t think that Realtors lack credibility. They are marketing and sales professionals. They do a lot more than a a travel agent. For instance, making sure that the people they are showing your home to are financially qualified (ever sell a home yourself? you’ll meet a lot of kooks and time wasters if you do). But they aren’t equipped to provide advice on the economics of any transaction.
I invest in Real Estate, and wouldn’t do so without the assistance of a Realtor.
April 17th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Incidentally, this is a brilliant map. Very useful for anyone buying or selling Real Estate.
April 18th, 2011 at 6:46 am
“For instance, making sure that the people they are showing your home to are financially qualified ”
Yeah, just like during the housing boom. It takes real skill to hold a mirror up to someone’s mouth. Speaking of which, I don’t think Realtors get ENOUGH blame for their extra-slimy role in the housing bubble.
Realtor’s are parasitic middlemen. I cannot see any value they add to a transaction; indeed, they facilitate nothing that a person possessing reasonable control of their faculties couldn’t handle themselves, perhaps with the help of a lawyer specializing in real estate. Realtors have a vested in interest in screwing buyers, because that’s where their meal ticket is.
Anyway — totally anachronistic job.
April 18th, 2011 at 7:49 am
I checked my local zip codes, and found this map to be ludicrously inaccurate.
April 18th, 2011 at 10:55 am
List price cut after 30 days… Pretty common overall here in Portland. Soft market but close in and prime locations less so.
W/ the amount of information available on zillow, trulia and redfin there is no need to rely solely on the MLS and realtors. Though I get the feeling you face a disadvantage if you try to go FSBO. It’s a club that’s pretty tight and realtors want to deal with their own and maintain their turf. In these days there is considerable downward pressure on commissions locally and they should be less. Selling a house is not that complicated of a transaction after you have done it a couple times. Furthermore why should you pay such a large percentage for a realtor to sell your house for you. You own it not them. I do not think top selling realtors lack credibility but they are over compensated . The sales commission is the largest part of the transactional cost of selling real estate , the escrow company cost does not come close. Nobody would even consider a 5% commission in the UK and I don’t know why we accept it here in the USA.
April 18th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
A developer client of mine in the old days would say that he never used a realtor on the sales side of a transaction – however he did use a realtor when he went to purchase a property. His time was more valuable and of course the seller would bear the costs of the purchaser’s realtor ie. split commissions. YMMV
April 19th, 2011 at 1:06 am
formerlawyer — that seems like an inversion, since it’s the buyer who get’s gigged the most in any real estate transaction. Realtors are in it to make as much commission from a transaction as they can, which is not in the interest of a potential buyer.
As for saving time: 3-4 hours of boilerplate legal contracts, tops. This is not complicated stuff.
April 19th, 2011 at 1:40 am
@bulfinch
Sorry, the client meant that he had his realtor “pre-screen” properties based on his specific criteria – not just through the MLS. He was in the business of rehabbing and flipping homes – although I am curious how he is doing now. Given that most vendors engage realtors and my jurisdiction had a “single commission” convention, splitting the single commission between vendor’s realtor and purchasers realtor was common. Of course he would sell as an Owner and not pay any commissions.
April 21st, 2011 at 8:00 am
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