Other measures of beach cities market activity, March 2007

Shorewood has provided March numbers.

The average DOM for the beach cities, by Shorewood calculations, is 55. That's about 34% higher than March 2006 DOM. DOM has declined by 8% since February, but for a market that is *supposed* to be recovering, I would expect it to be much lower.

I have not had any time to do any DOM calculations on Redondo Beach data for March, and am not sure I'll be able to get to it by the end of this month, but I will try to get it done so we can always compare what we are being told by realtors and the media to what the data tells us. I will say, though, that in the recent sales I've seen, I expect DOM to come down somewhat. My calculation for Redondo has been roughly double what Shorewood reports.

Here is my homegrown measure of beach cities "supply strength", which takes a ratio of inventory and sales. For the beach cities, it has (by pointing down) been recovering over the winter months. The trend started leveling off in February, but has continued down in March. With listings expiring over the winter months, that shrank inventory, bringing the ratio down.

From about mid-March through Easter, the rate at which new inventory was coming on the market had slowed quite a bit, but after Easter it has started to pick up again. March was the first month in ages that sales outpaced new inventory. April will probably be another good sales month (though not as blockbuster as March). I don't think that sales will outpace new inventory in April, but we shall see. There are plenty of old listings being relisted (which I don't count as new inventory). I have reason to believe the psychological backlog is still there.

Just keep in mind that what I graph in the chart is Shorewood's definition of inventory. By their numbers the I-S/S ratio is starting to look very tight again, isn't it? It looks like 2005 all over again, but it sure doesn't feel like 2005. When I talk about Redondo inventory I am talking about all the unresolved listings I have sitting in my records, which vastly outnumber the "official" MLS listings.

Here is the median price of a home sold in the beach cities in March. I would trust this more than what DataQuick tells us, because this data is an aggregation of the four beach cities and forms a larger dataset so small number errors don't cause a problem. It is continuing off a low from January. I have also plotted a simple moving average.

This last chart is the %YOY change on the simple moving average of the median price.

Overall, I'd say that with credit standards tighter and prices barely down from a year ago, this is hardly an environment for any sort of sustainable recovery in the housing market. Contrary to what realtors may tell you about how "healthy" this market has been, this market is sick and it has been for years, catching the virus of super easy credit and mania mentality.