“The Micro Market Discussion is more relevant now than ever.” The headlines that we read describing the housing market are usually about Macro Markets and depict National, State, County or City trends. This distorts the public’s perception of what could actually be happening in their own neighborhood. In the 16 local markets that we follow for this study, we have compared market statistics of January 2007 to January 2008. The differences from market to market are remarkable and are all over the map no pun intended. General observations reveal:

1. Neighboring markets are performing very differently.
2. In a tough lending environment knowing the specific market trends in the neighborhood under your review could save or make a deal.
3. What is actually happening is often different from what you might think or feel. Feelings are not facts.
4. The median sales price has increased in 12 of the 16 markets in our study. This belies what is actually portrayed in the news.
5. The average days on market for a listing is shorter in 10 of the 16 markets we track. This would seem contradictory to general perception.
6. The total dollar volume of sales in these markets have experienced decreased sales volume in 10 of the markets, increased sales volume in 5 markets and the same volume with the previous year in 1 market.
7. The total number of units sold in 12 markets were down from the previous year and in the four remaining markets there was an increase in units sold.
8. As imagined the high end is outperforming the previous year with Brentwood and Beverly Hills as the leaders in all categories.

Please see the West LA Micro Market Data - PDF as your source for your particular market.

I hope you find this information useful.

Peter

Filed under: Industry and Economic News, Micro Market Updates on February 21st, 2008