Redondo Beach square footage of unsold new construction, 2006-2007
I thought it would be interesting to see what builders are actually building so I can later compare it to what buyers are actually buying. After overhauling my data records to show the construction year (only for new homes), I was finally able to chart this:
And here are the stats:
CURRENT PCTRED SQFT
ASKING
MEDIAN $1,195,000 0.0 2434
AVERAGE $1,338,402 2.7 2564
MIN $699,000 -5.2 1600
MAX $4,990,000 19.2 4700
There is nothing that is being built that is less than 1600 sqft. In my next post I'll check and see exactly how existing smaller homes are selling. I suspect they are selling reasonably well, as long as they are very competitively priced. I wonder if the availability of smaller homes in places like Torrance, plus the availability of new high-density housing units such as Fusion in Hawthorne, limit the small-home "upside" (not to mention tightening credit and an overall market that is slumping anyway)...
posted by bearmaster at 12:26 PM
3 Comments:
Bearmaster,
I'm tracking south bay home inventory and I cannot help but notice that Redondo and Torrance are gaining in inventory (per ziprealty) while most of the south bay is flat. Do you have a guess as to why?
Also, I'm happy to see that about 65% of the new build homes are in the size range I would consider... :)
As far as nothing being below 1600ft^2, I'm not surprised. There is too much rental competition below 1400ft^2.
But who can buy at these prices?
Got popcorn?
Neil
I have found the Zip Realty number way too unreliable. I have no other guess, but when I carefully look over the entries, it looks like the more inventory they enter, the more they screw up and enter duplicates. At least for Redondo Beach, sloppy bookkeeping is a part of the problem.
What I have found more reliable is my own database of records. Right now, out of 1,185 records, I cannot find sales for 731 of them (almost 62%). (What I consider)new inventory in RB is coming on the market at the rate of over 4.5 properties a day. If this rate continues, there will be 137 new properties by the end of the month. My current wild-ass projection for the number of properties sold in RB for June is 98. If the trends continue (and that's a HUGE if), for the first time in a few months, new inventory will exceed sales volume.
I don't think we are on the verge of a foreclosure tidal wave just yet, but the ocean could be receding as a warning sign. I read an article today that said the FHA is restructuring 2 out of every 3 of its problem mortgage loans so people can stay in their houses. If more lenders are doing that, they are delaying the inevitable.
I got that backwards. It is 38% of the entries that don't have sales recorded, not 62%. As my data has gotten better and better over time, that percentage has risen up from about 20% and (I think) has topped out at 38%.
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