Sorry for the lapse in new posts on the blog. I have friends from the bay area visiting and staying in Incline Village, so I’ve joined them in taking advantage of the awesome snow conditions to do some snowboarding over the last few days. And you thought all I did was sell real estate. 🙂
But today it’s back to business. There’s a thought I’ve been tossing around for awhile. It pertains to the median price that I post each month. At the moment, the median price I track includes condo and house sales for the month. Lately I’ve been thinking of separating the two. When most other sites and new sources quote housing stats, they do so for houses only…and not condominiums. Or, if they include condos, they do so as a separate number. That is why my numbers sometimes don’t match those you see, for example, printed in the RGJ.
My thought is that by separating the two and then reporting each as a separate number, I can provide a more accurate picture of the housing market in Reno and Sparks. If I make this change, I will go back a re-compute the historical medians for site/stick built houses and again for condo/town homes. That way you data fans would still have the trend data available. Let me know your thoughts on this.
To show you the effect of such a change, the median home sold price I reported for January was $194,450. Under my new plan, I would have reported January’s median sold price as: $200,000 for site/stick built houses and $99,000 for condos/townhouse.
The trends we’ve seen since I began tracking the median numbers will not materially change. It’s just that condos have taken a much bigger hit than stick built homes, and that bit of info gets lost when I combine the two. For example condos are now off 52% from their peak in the fall of 2005, where as stick built houses are off 45% from their peak.
Reno Ignoramus
If it’s not too much trouble for you Guy, I would appreciate the breakdown between condos and stickbuilts. The more detailed the data we have, the more accurate the conclusions we can reach. Would this also include data on the number of sales for condos separate from the number of sales for stickbuilts? This blog provides so much data already that we don’t want to overwork you.
smarten
I agree w/RI Guy but share in his concerns re: overwhelming your existing efforts.
Not that I’m currently in Incline Village Guy, but next time you decide to come over the hill for some of what our side of Mt. Rose offers, give me a call! I’d love to meet up w/you on the slopes!
Grand Wazoo
A slope meet-up at Mt Rose I think would be worth our while. For the non-skiers/boarders, we simply meet in the bar after some runs at the Mt Rose lodge, which is fully equipped.
Count me in.
lexi cerretti
Hi Guy! Glad to hear you have been enjoying the snow, how lucky winter is finally here!
I think it’s a great idea to seperate your numbers for condos and homes. I have been browsing the Reno market too with all the price reductions for some very nice homes, and your readers have some great insight, too. It will be interesting to see how the numbers change when you rerun them. Hey- love your facebook photos (long hair dude!)
Sully
Guy, a little off topic but – Can you request a tie breaker to be Nevada style (high card)?
I just lost a deal (both parties identical offers) by the time stamp. I was under the impression that the time stamp was not used if the bank had countered the original offer.
Obviously I was wrong. So to prevent this from happening again I thought specifying a tie breaker would be better. What do you think?
Guy Johnson
Thank you all for your input. I believe I will separate condos from stickbuilt.
Smarten and Grand Wazoo, I am planning on hitting Mt Rose tomorrow (Saturday). I should be there by 10AM.
Lexi, thank you for the FB comment.
Sully, I suppose you could request a “Nevada style” tiebreaker. I haven’t seen it done before, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Another approach would be to simply resubmit your offer at better terms than the competing. You say that the offers were identical. Make yours better, i.e. faster close; higher down payment; higher purchase price, etc.
Sully
Guy, I thought I did all that anyway. I was somewhat suspicious about this deal as the house was one of the foreclosures by REDO – last month. I suspected the other offer was the high bid at the auction, and the bank wanted more money.
I wouldn’t put it past these sleazy auctioners to give the high bid first chance of refusal or match any offer. Once it went into tie status, we weren’t asked to submit higher bids, so the time stamp was used.
I submitted offer (cash) at 12 noon on first day of listing, so the co-incidence was just too suspect.
Guy Johnson
Sully, if they are playing games with you, then it’s likely they will return and say that the other offer fell through, so you make get another chance at it. Actually given the low rate of escrows closing, you may get another opportunity at the property anyway.
Land Guy
Guy,
I really like the idea of seperating the condos; and in the interest of more accurate information is there a way to seperate HOA related NOD filings from the total. I believe they are skewing the numbers, and the media is the only one benefiting from such…
Guy Johnson
RI, yes I will be able to report the number of sales for condos and stick built.
Land Guy, unfortunately, I know of no *easy* way to perform that break out.
diablo
what’s up with the local market conditions link? it is from diane, the data is almost 3 months old.
Easly Does It
Guy–Yes, you should separate out your numbers by property type. Here in Chicago, with huge data volumes (and one would suppose, skills), it still surprises me that metrics are reported without specifics on property type. Glad you’re getting some good snow to go with your hills…can you send some hills our way now?