Wednesday, February 16, 2011

What's Happening in Your Neighborhood?

When someone says "How you doin'?" they don't want to know if my neck aches; they're just saying "Hi". However, when I meet a person who says "How's the real estate market?" they probably want to know How's the real estate market. In fact, they specifically want to know What's Happening in MY Neighborhood?? That's what matters most and last I heard from the us Realtors, markets are local.

They certainly are local. In Madison we have Lake Mendota, which has shoreline extending to more than a few communities and 21.6 miles, according to Wikipedia. If I'm sitting on the pier at Memorial Union and a friend calls me from his home in Middleton and asks "How's the water?" and I answer "warm", because the north side of the lake heated up that day, and he jumps in and finds the water frigid, he might wonder about my sense of reality. But, If before answering, I ask ,"What water?" or "What part of the lake?" I can give an answer more relevant to my friend. Same goes for real estate.

For 2011, I will follow the neighborhoods where I have homes for sale, and  report on the statistics and trends on this blog. The beginning of the year looks cautiously optimistic at first glance at a few areas. Here's what's happening in your neighborhood according to our MLS, and all data is too small to draw any projection conclusions. Unless otherwise noted, the areas are by High School districts.
  • Middleton: 9 closings in January. Average first asking price to sale price is 83% and 190 days on the market.
  • DeForest: 7 closings in January. Average first asking price to sale price is 89% and 218 days on the market.
  • McFarland: 6 Closings. 95% and 55 days
  • Mount Horeb: 3 Closings. 93% and 32 days.
  • North of the Beltline, near Fish Hatchery Road: 2 Closings 93.7% and 288 days on the market.
  • ** Elvehjem School District: 3 closings (two others were new construction) 85% sale price to first asking price and a cumulative average of 520 days on the market. However, each of the 3 homes attracted an acceptable offer in less than a 100 days from their last price change. In fact, the two that took over a year to sell were got an offer ins 37 and 16 days after the last price change.
  • ***Burke, Bristol, Town of Sun Prairie: 8 Closings, 85% sale price to first asking price. 169 days on the market, HOWEVER, it took only an average of 46 days from last price change until the owner accepted an offer. Three of the sales appear to be distressed sales out of the 8. This area is a distressed sale hotbed.
Distressed sales (REO and Short Sales) do not appear to be significant yet. I found 3, and there were also 3  new construction homes which were not included in this data. Our MLS can be manipulated to show fewer than actual cumulative days on the market. For the big picture it probably doesn't matter as much as when you try to get a clear image of the hyper local market. My sense today is that PRICE is key and more key is that the price is perceived as a "Tremendous Value". I think Tremendous Value is replacing Location, location, location in the priority of real estate lexicon.

If your neighborhood isn't mentioned, just let me know and I will include it---FREE. I'll keep adding areas as the year goes and we can drill down to get the most important insight. If I do this right, I should be able to tell you where the water is warm or cold before you jump in.

** a reader asked for Elvehjem information.
Another reader asked for condo sales to be broken out. Because not all neighborhoods have condos, I am not tracking Condos. However, I will provide that information in you give me specific condo associations you are interested in.
***On 2/24 a reader asked for Burke, Bristol, and Town of Sun Prairie.

6 comments:

  1. Love the info...is it possible to split out condos in the numbers?

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  2. Would love to see the East Side of Madison (Elvehjem neighborhood).

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  3. Do you have figures for Burke, Bristol and Sun Prairie (north of 151)?

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  4. Town of Cottage Grove/Town of Pleasant Springs??

    Cottage Grove, Deerfield, and Soughton?

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  5. How about the Town of Dunn?

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  6. Are data available for Fitchburg, or subsections of Fitchburg?

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