February 16, 2006 Weekly Bay Area Real Estate Market Newsletter

This GRAPHIC SUMMARY of our data allows you to quickly visualize the detail data presented in this Newsletter.

8-year averages This graph shows the three market components (inventory, sales, DUI) compared to a 8-year average. Comparing the same date each year seasonally adjusts the data. Between mid-July 2005 and early December 2005 inventory increased rapidly from 73% to 112% of the 8-year average. Since early December inventory has been unchanged. From early October to late January sales have dropped from 115% to 83% of the 8-year average. Sales have improved slightly since the end of January reaching 89%. Since early October DUI has increased from 68% to 133% of the 8-year average as of February 1^st, followed by a slight improvement to 121%. Remember a high DUI is bad.

Sales compared to the 10-year average  The seasonally adjusted sales volume bottomed out 84% on January 24^th. Sales have improved slightly to 91%. Approximately 107.5% would be normal because of average growth over 10 years. Low sales volume remains our biggest concern. Sales have not been this low except for the first half of 1995 and March through November 2001. Since mid-October 2005 the question has been what scared away the buyers?

inventory   sales volume   dui  Seasonally adjusting the three market components by comparing current market conditions to each of the previous years using the same date. Inventory was increasing compared with each of the past years except, 2003. The increase abated in December. Inventory is above every year except 2003. Sales had been tracking past years until mid-October. Since then sales have decreased compared to the past years and are now following normal pattern except at a lower than normal level. DUI (the key component) has been increasing compared to all previous years but has leveled off or an upward tendency. DUI is higher (worse) than any year except 2001 & 2003. DUI is improving compared to 2001 when the market slowed very abruptly.

1999  This graphs show the current market conditions compared to 1998/9. The December 2005 market had been duplicating the December 1998 market. This is good news as 1999 was a good year. But notice the recent 2006 trend compared with 1999. Inventory is increasing from 82% to 120%. The number of sales is increasing but less rapidly than January 1999. Sales dropped from 91% to 76% of 1999. Since January 22nd, sales have essentially duplicated 1999 reaching 79% of the 1999 level. DUI is increasing more rapidly than January 1999 going from 87% to 152%. It is the drop in sales that is attributing to the increase in inventory and DUI. So the key question is what happened to the buyers? The other previous years were removed because the 2005 market trends were no longer following any of these previous years. Without a multiple past pattern to compare with, estimating the future is more difficult.

Shifting from seasonally adjusted data to the raw data, things look much better. Unfortunately, we believe that the seasonally adjusted data is far more significant because real estate has a strong seasonal cycle.

Current Inventory (supply) finally started to decrease as of October 22, 2005. This normally happens by mid-July. The rate of decrease has been less than normal. Late in 2005 inventory was behaving somewhat normally. But that was short lived as with the start of 2006 inventory is already increasing. The longer into the new year before this happens the better the year. Historically, an increase in inventory this early in the year is not good.

Sales per day (demand)  This is the average daily number of initiated sales (offers accepted). Sales have been decreasing since the Friday before Memorial Day. This is normal. The rate of decrease in sales is more than normal. Sales normal don't start increasing until January 17th. Sales bottomed out at 692 on the 18th and have increased to 1216 on February 16th.

Days of Unsold Inventory (supply/demand ratio) is the key market indicator in a free economy. DUI has dropped to 54 days of unsold inventory. We believe that this is still artificially high (because of the holiday) and will drop to about 50 before increasing. DUI has been decreasing because of the increase in sales. This is mostly a seasonal effect and not an indication the market is improving. It is becoming clear to us that we should seasonally adjust DUI as we have the data to do so and the market is not at one extreme or the other. Until now we simply consider 45-90 DUI to be a balanced market regardless of the time of year.

Percentage Sold price greater than List price 44.1%  It is difficult to be concerned when nearly every other seller is getting more than their asking price. There is no question that the frequency of overbidding has dropped significantly from a peak of 75.2% in early May 2005. Even in the worst markets frequency of overbidding stays in the teens. If we adjust the range to be 15 to 75% then 45% is in the middle. Overbidding was fairly stable from mid-July to mid-October. Then from mid-October through December another slide and finally more stability in January. Remember this compares Sold price to List price at the time the offer was excepted. Many sellers are now making price reductions prior to the offer being accepted. The Sold price can be lower than the original List price and still count as an overbid. It is noteworthy that the magnitude of overbidding did drop below 100% for the first time since March 5, 2003 reaching 99.9% and currently is at 100.0%. 

Median List Price  (seller's expectations) At $749,000 it is really hard to get concerned as this is essentially tied for the new record high of $750,000 set February 9, 2006. This could be the price spike we were expecting very early in 2006 or just sellers and listing agents anticipating a jump in prices causing the list price to increase and volume to drop more as buyers realize that the market is not going to sustain higher prices this years. This is still close to the 1-week record of $742,000 set on July 28th. Seller's expectations tends to lag the market changes, so the market could have changed despite this record level.

Median Sold price  (reality of market) It is difficult to be concerned about the market when the median Sold price was at $748,888 as recently as December 8th as the market has been fluctuating between $733,000 and $760,000 since March 2005. However, December 22nd experienced a drop to $730,000 which was the lowest level since March 2005. There was a small recovery bounce to $735,000 on December 29th. This was perfectly timed to increase December's median Sold price to $734,950 opposed to the more reflective value of $730,000. The median Sold price as since returned to $730,000 but bounced high again to $740,000 just in time for January's official median Sold price. This week the median Sold price is $735,000. Sold price reflects the market 30 to 45 days earlier because of the length of escrow. 

90-day market indicator. This is where we expect the public will perception will be in 90 days based on today's market trends. The last time this indicator was this bad was most of 2001 and the first half of 1995. Even though this data is seasonally adjusted there appears to be a tendency to decline at this time of the year. This would tend to say that the holidays are starting to have a bigger negative impact on real estate in recent years opposed to the past 10-years. This could be an indication that the general economy is getting better so more people are doing more for the holidays and that takes them away from real estate. 

CONCLUSION: Real estate is seasonal. Therefore, the seasonally adjusted data is more significant than the raw (unadjusted) data. This doesn't speak well of the near-term future of the SCC real estate market. The good news was the seasonally adjusted in the table below had seen a significant decrease in negative signs after Christmas. The bad news is this data is still mostly negative and definitely at below normal levels. It is the lack of sales that has us concerned.

Each client has to make their own decision on when to buy and sell real estate. We believe real estate has been and will continue to be a good long term investment. Sellers should place their homes on the market now. This is because as we look at the data there is a good chance that the market will peak very early in 2006, like it did in 2001 when the peak was January through March 2001. We believe that the 2006 peak will likely be earlier and shorter duration than in 2001. December's median Sold price of $734,950 is essentially the same as March and September level of $733.000. January's median Sold price is $740,000 followed by a downward trend to about $700,000 with the bulk of this drop occurring in May timeframe. We acknowledge our forecast is not shared by others. However, we are using current market data opposed to closed monthly data. Therefore the change we saw in mid-October won't show in the others' data until mid-January. We believe that by March 2006 it is likely to have year over year price decline. It is noteworthy to mention that SMC saw their annual appreciation drop to only 4% in December. We do expect SMC to see a recovery in January. The media is focused on year of year appreciation and that focus should continue the downward slide when March's decline is reported in April 2006. There is a slight chance that this may happen a month earlier for San Mateo County. We anticipate that the annualized appreciation will drop dramatically during the first quarter of 2006 and reach negative numbers in March or April. 

Buyers need to balance their personal needs with the risk of increasing interest rates coupled with a softening market. Basically, we believe that a buyer should not feel any pressure from higher prices, but buyers should move forward because of interest rates provided they are looking at a long term investment. Cash buyers should wait for the prices to dip.

This weekly analysis is based on the overall real estate market conditions of single family homes in Santa Clara County. If you are considering selling or buying, it is important to evaluate specific real estate market data for your individual transaction based on price range, geographic area, and type of real estate you are purchasing or selling. Just contact us for this customized information. 

The table below compares the current real estate market conditions to each of the past 7 years. The sign ( + = - ) next each year indicates if the current market trends are improving(+), staying the same(=), or getting worse(-) compared to that specific year. Better/worse is determined from the owner's point of view. Notice that number of negative signs. With the drop in sales inventory will start increasing.

Viewing the three graphs that are linked in the column headings above provides a good overview of the current market conditions. Notice that 2006 is weaker than or equal to most previous years. The rate of changes are mostly normal. 

Inventory – 1884; Currently 2006 has significantly more inventory than in 2000 at 286%, 2005 at 164%, 2004 at 122%, 1999 at 120%, 2002 at 111% about the same inventory levels as 2001 at 103%, and significantly less than 2003 at only 62%. The gradual elimination of surplus inventory during 2004 caused a shortage of inventory in 2005 contributing to our belief that 2005 would likely be similar to or stronger than 1999. With the recent increase in inventory, 2006 will likely be significantly less robust than 2005. From mid-May until July 4th inventory was actually decreasing. Since July 4th inventory has been growing again at a time when inventory is normally decreasing. This increase in inventory became even more significant since Katrina. Inventory finally leveled off and actually decreased since mid-October. But the rate of decline has been less than normal. The general perception of limited inventory earlier this year contributed to the price firming. The growth in inventory will contribute to price stabilization and if the growth continues, price easing. With inventory already increasing in 2006 this would tend to support our belief that 2006 will be a soft year. Based on the continual increase of inventory in August and September, we reduced our 2006 appreciation guess from 15% to 10% to 5% and now likely slightly negative.

Days of Unsold Inventory – 54.2 What a difference 1-year makes. On February 2, 2005 DUI was only 30.1. The balance between supply and demand is the most important factor in a free economy. We measure this balance using Days of Unsold the Inventory (DUI). Most areas in the nation use "months of unsold inventory." Since February 26, 2005 when DUI was only 26.4, DUI has been increasing slowly, except for holiday bounces. DUI has been increasing more rapidly in July, but was still nothing to be concerned about, especially because it has been flat for most of August. DUI has been increasing again since October. It will now depends on how much longer "extra" sellers come onto the market. As the number of buyers appeared to decline we became concerned about the 10% appreciation for 2006. Based on the increase in DUI caused by increasing inventory and now decreasing buyers we think 2006 appreciation will be closer to 0% or less and may end the year at or below current price levels at about $700K

Santa Teresa, North Valley, Milpitas, Santa Clara, Blossom Valley, Cambrian, Campbell, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and Mt View are leading the way in Santa Clara County with 23-40 DUI. By our definition are still experiencing a seller's market. Just Saratoga is lagging behind with 101 DUI, which represents a buyer's market. The areas not mentioned are in a balanced market with a DUI ranging from 51 to 84. It is noteworthy that Los Gatos that is normal one of the slowest areas has a DUI of only 81 this week.

It is also important to note that the different price ranges have significantly different DUI and therefore different market conditions. These price ranges should be considered the low, middle and high price ranges in any given real estate market area opposed to the set price ranges. So, in the more expensive areas the prices that represent low, middle and high are higher. The low priced homes (those under $750,000) only have 40 DUI. Homes between $750,000 and $1,000,000 have 46 DUI. Currently, homes between $1.0 Million and $2.5 M have 76 DUI; homes between $2.5M and 5.0 M have nearly 5 months of unsold inventory and homes over $5 Million have nearly 4 years. We consider 45 to 90 DUI as a balanced market. NOTE: because of the significant nature of the holidays DUI is always higher at this time of the year and not a true reflection of market conditions. DUI has started to drop this week.

We expect DUI to improve to about 50 as we move past the holidays. This is better than the DUI of 60 that SCC had going into the holidays. However, we believe that this will be short lived and is a function of the sellers waiting until Spring to list their homes, while Buyers enter the market right after New Years. We believe the near record low volume of transactions will spook additional buyers out of the market. Lastly, we have not yet seasonally adjusted our definition of 45-90 DUI being a normal market. Historically, this is the time of the year with the lowest DUI. The easiest why to demonstrate this is despite 50 DUI being a strong market, DUI was only higher (worse) in 2003 and matches the level in 2001.

Median List Price - $749,000 - The median List price actually set a new record high of $750,000 on February 9, 2005 beating $742,000 set back on July 28, 2005 and $745,000 set on February 2nd. We believe that this reflects agents and sellers believing price have increased with the new year opposed to a real increase in price. Time will tell.

Number of initiated Sales per day – 34.8 Something happened around July 11th that caused the buyers to leave the market at a faster than normal pace. The all time record high level of 66.7 sales/day was reached just prior to Memorial Day 2004 and will likely remain the record for years to come. 2005's record of 57.9 sales/day was also achieved just prior to the Memorial Day weekend. The previous record was 54.8 sales per day also reached just prior to Memorial Day but back in 1999. We believe that part of the record volume in 2004 and 2005 is a direct result of issues with the MLS database that continue two years after the disastrous migration in July 2003.

Percentage of normal sales initiated – 91.4%. Sales have not been this low since 2001. This was 116.5% in mid-October. This dropped 20+% to 94.3% by mid-December where it stabilized until dropping from 94.6% on January 6, 2006 to 86.6% on January 19th. We believe that this is significant as it demonstrates that the buyers are leaving the market in significant numbers. We do not have an explanation for why there was significant increase in the number of sellers and also decreases in the number of buyers. It is clearly happened. If the current slow down was the "normal seasonal slow-down" as many claim the percentage of sales would remain constant as this data is seasonally adjusted. With a drop of 20+% in 2 months followed by another 10% drop in 2 weeks it is clearly more significant slowdown than normal. January 2006 had only 661 completed sales (closed transactions). This will be the lowest level since 1998 except for January 2001 which had 599 and the next lowest was 717 in 2003.

Median Sold price – $735,000. The record high of $759,000 was set on May 19, 2005. After being at $750,000 to $760,000 for the Summer, September's median Sold price dipped to $733,000 which was the same as March's median Sold price. October's median Sold price came in at $741,000. November's median Sold price came in at $745,000. December's median Sold price came in at $734,950. January's price will be basically unchanged from December at $740,000 before we expect a slide to about $700K by September 2006. Much of this slide will likely occur by May triggered in part by the media report in April what we believe will be year over year negative appreciation for March.

We believe that the peak for 2005 market occurred at about Mother's Day 2005. May and June 2005 were the hottest since 1998 when we started the detailed analysis. This was followed by July through December where the market has cooled significantly. December 2005 through now is rapidly becoming one of the weakest markets we have had since 1998, only 2001 was weaker and that may not be true much longer. We don't believe that the majority of the consumers understand how much the market has slowed in the last 6 months and mostly in the last 2 1/2 months of 2005.

Average Sold price to List price ratio – 100.0% Peaking at 104.4% on April 21, 2005. SCC hasn't experienced that level since back in 2000, when it reached 109%. The magnitude of overbidding has been decreasing essentially weekly from April 21, 2005 until August 18, 2005. It then stabilized until mid-October before resuming its weekly decline reaching 99.7% on January 5, 2006. This demonstrates that buyers are not feeling as much pressure and/or that sellers are expecting more and have raised their asking prices. We consider 98.5% a normal real estate market. This is based on the asking price at the time the offer is accepted NOT the Seller's original asking price and reflects market conditions 25 to 95 days ago because of the length of escrow and how this data is collected. This is one of the few times where an average is more useful than the median. The median ratio would almost always be 100%. 

Percentage of completed Sales where Sold price was greater than List price – 44.1% The all time record high of 75.2% was set May 12, 2005 beating the 74.8% level reached in April 2000. Starting in February 2005 through May 12, 2005 the frequency of overbidding had been increasing. Between May 19, 2005 and July 21, 2005 the frequency of overbidding has been declining again. Between July 21, 2005 and Veteran's Day the frequency of overbidding had been flat with almost 3 out of every 5 sellers getting more than their asking price, at the time the offers accepted. This has dropped every week since November 10, 2005 through the end of 2005. It is no surprise that the dips in overbidding follow the dips in volume of sales because overbidding is a measure of the amount of unsatisfied buyer demand.

Median DOM for completed sales – 36 days. DOM was 11 as recent as mid-May. DOM for offers accepted has increased to 42 before reversing with the increase in new listings since New Year. We expect DOM for completed sales to increase for a bit longer. Currently DOM is not very meaningful because the MLS is allowing DOM to revert to zero. Although average DOM is more commonly used we believe as with price, median is much more reflective of the market.

How are the other Counties doing? Based on the moving monthly data published weekly, SMC median List price re-bounded $850,000 but is down $9,000 from their record high of $859,000 set on May 12, 2005. SMC median Sold price is $810,000 off $115,00 from their new record of $925,000 set on May 5, 2005. At $749,000, SCC median List price is now $7,000 ABOVE their previous record high price $742,000 achieved on July 28, 2005. The median Sold price at $735,000 off $25,000 from the record high of $760,000 established on June 30, 2005. SZC's median List price at $749,000 is off $40,500 from for their record high of $789,500 set on July 14, 2005. SZC's median Sold price of $750,000 is off $62,000 their new record of  $812,000 set on December 8, 2005. MTY median List price at $699,700 almost equals their record high of $707,500 set on December 1, 2005. Monterey's median Sold price of $700,000 is just $12,000 below their new all time record high of $712,000 on January 5, 2006.

Additional background information