Asking $1,025,000 for 310 Townsend #305 in 2007, the 1,238 square foot two-bedroom ended up selling for $850,000 in 2008. Three days ago it closed escrow for a reported $765,000, down 10 percent from February 2008 but 2 percent “over asking.”
∙ 310 Townsend: Available And Selling [SocketSite 5/07]
I think the crop of closings we’ll see for the next few months will have some built in bumps not seen in the previous numbers for the same property. $18,000 in tax credits, cash back to the buyer (to cover “closing costs” – you can imagine what the bankers have done to those) on their FHA loan. Years of HOA dues wrapped into the loan. So you can end up with 10% higher prices or more.
That’s all drying up. The cash back is cut in half, the Federal tax credit is gone and the California one is about to disappear.
But it was fun while it lasted. People without anything down could buy houses again and get money back!
Needless to say, you can pretty much ignore anything that closes in April-June. It’s going to be quite the bump at this price point.
wow, this closed 2% over asking! by socketsite logic this means every realtor in the city is going to have their clients bid 2% over asking price on every similar unit in the city…do you see how they manipulate those numbers, we need some more transparency out there people.
anon$random, can’t tell if you were being facetious, but take a look at:
http://www.rereport.com/sf/index.html
Site appears to have questionable sales stats, but leads off with: “The sales price to list price ratio for single-family, re-sale homes rose to 100.8% in April indicating that buyers are competing for the best homes on the market.” So I actually think your socketsite logic prediction is more accurate than you may have intended.
^^^
Basis for your “appears to have questionable sales stats” conclusion?
Somebody pointed out on a thread a day or two ago that the rereport numbers differed from the MLS numbers by a fairly wide margin.
^^
Hangemhi commented that the rereport.com website substantially UNDER-reported actual April 2010 condo sales on the MLS and reported LOWER-than-actual pricing. [see: “I have April ’09 Condo/unit sales at 149 sales with an avg price of $777,026 with and April ’10 at 181 sales with an avg of $782,867.”]
No question raised about reporting of SFH sales at all. In fact, I don’t think anyone has questioned rereport’s sfh numbers; yet this supports your theory about “questionable” practices, how?
If you have another, better source for April sales figures, please share it. I have been following rereport’s numbers for a couple years and I think this is the first time any one has questioned their accuracy.
I actually looked at this unit the first weekend it was out. The seller’s agent said the seller will not consider any bids prior to “x” date (which was two weeks after it was listed).
The place was nice, however, all of the windows were property line windows, with the exception of a few small windows that lead out to an atrium (which would not provide nearly enough light for the place). This was a big risk, considering the fact that I can see adjacent buildings building upwards in the future.
Relax sanfrantim. As I noted, I mentioned rereport’s numbers in a different thread and somebody responded that they were way off from those in the MLS. Hence, I made the mild comment above that the site “appears to have questionable sales stats.” That’s all. I didn’t say the guy was a crook, a fraud, or anything of that nature. Heck, that site’s numbers may be spot on for all I know, but it “appears” that they may not be. Anyone with MLS access can give you the full April sales stats. I don’t have them.
Hi A.T/SanFrantim,
Does RE report take into consideration the original listing price? If not, the data is skewed anyway. You can have sales above asking price, if the asking price is reduced over the span of months by 20% of the original listing price.
ok – i’m relaxed and here’s my translation: You tried to make some point based on an “apparent” discrepancy that (a) you did not check out and (b) that, even if confirmed, did not support your point. And you got caught.
sanfrantim, not sure how it would not support my point “even if confirmed” but it doesn’t matter. The apparently questionable nature of rereport’s sales stats is a tangent. The point is that the site operator — a realtor — is touting the “over asking” ratio as “evidence” that buyers are again competing for the best homes on the market. This despite the fact that we all know the “over asking” data are B.S. no matter how rereport is adding up sales.
LP v SP may be useful if you know what the original list price was — not clear that rereport does, and their numbers don’t match DQ, FWIW.
anon, the clincher for me is that the guy running rereport knows this as he shows the SP/OLP (original list price) ratio in the annual data he presents. But he knowingly omits this key marker in presenting his “buyer’s market” conclusion in the monthly numbers. This all, of course, is the point to the ed’s putting “over asking” in quotations in his comments above.
“The sales price to list price ratio for single-family, re-sale homes rose to 100.8% in April indicating that buyers are competing for the best homes on the market.”
this isn’t necessarily true or untrue, depending on how I look at the word construction of the sentence.
I see AT’s point. However, I agree with rereport’s statement with one added caveat: buyers are competing for the best well priced homes on the market.
we’ve seen some great properties fly off the market if they’ve been priced well. There are other great properties that sit forever, if overpriced. The crap of the market sits around… no reason to buy it.
rereport’s data has a selection bias (it’s reporting sales and not what’s sitting around), and it may have a data error (using last list price prior to sale instead of original list price). but we all know this and thus can adjust our understanding of their data. The trend is more important than the data anyway, and thus rereport’s data is of interest so long as methodology remains constant over the series.