Real Data SF

The Dirt on San Francisco Real Estate – (Broker, Cal. Dept. Real Estate License No. 773349)

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Absorption R.I.P.

February 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments

After talking to people about my last post on Absorption Rates and the lack of a correlation between slower absorption and lower median prices (or faster absorption and higher prices), I got the impression that there was some curiosity — skepticism?  — about the underlying numbers.  So I thought a post mortem of sorts was [...]

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Tags: Data · Market news

Revised Absorption Chart, but the results are the same, only worse

January 30th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Thanks, Jean-Claude for making me take a second look at my methodology on my Absorption Chart.  I had anticipated your point about the lag between listing dates and sales but had unfortunately gotten the formula backwards in my chart — basically dividing inventory by lagging sales, rather than forward sales:  moral of the story:  don’t [...]

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Tags: Data · Economy · Market news

Supply/Demand: Does it predict price? Maybe not.

January 25th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Now hold on there, matie!  Basic economic theory  says more supply than demand, prices will fall, right?  Well take a look at this graph. It shows the absorption rate of single family home listings from January 2006 through December 2008 plotted against median prices (click to make it bigger):

“Absorption” is basically the number of weeks [...]

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Tags: Data · Economy

The Credit Crunch from the Other Side of the Desk

December 18th, 2008 · No Comments

I’ve written a piece as a guest-writer for The Front Steps, one of the better blogs on SF Real Estate.
After talking to loan officers and loan brokers for several weeks about the lending environment, here are the takeaways:

Have “perfect everything”:  high credit score, secure job, money in the bank and documentation to prove it all.
Figure [...]

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Tags: Loans