Other measures of Los Angeles beach cities market activity, February 2008

Shorewood has published February statistics. I have to laugh because the headline on the front page of the website reads, "BEACH HOME SALES PERK UP IN FEBRUARY COMPARED TO PRIOR MONTH" but when you read the meat of the statistics, it still looks pretty bad!

According to Shorewood, February average DOM for the four beach cities was 51, down from 60 in February 2007. On such low sales volume relative to last year, I'm not sure if there is anything meaningful here or not. Not knowing anything else, I would have assumed that with the slight bounce in February sales relative to January, maybe buyers were coming back in the market for spring. But March is not looking particularly good, so that pulse beat we got in February might not have meant too much.

My preliminary February calculation for Redondo Beach with only 25 records came up with a median DOM of 119 days (4 months), and an average DOM of 133 days. This is pretty consistent with what I've been calculating. Remember, I start counting days from when a property first shows up for sale either in the MLS or on Craigslist, I don't start counting days from the most recent relisting! I honestly think my calculation gives a better indication of how long it takes to sell a property in Redondo Beach, assuming the property is priced very competitively and the buyer can obtain financing.

Supply Strength (Demand Weakness) still remains pegged high in February, though down very slightly from January. This chart compares inventory to sales. According to Shorewood, there were 66 homes sold in the four beach cities in February, compared to 128 the year before. There were 595 homes for sale in February, compared to 475 the year before. Inventory is up +25.3% and sales declined -48.4%.

The February sale price median was $884,000, up 2.2% from $865,000 in February 2007.