Monday, February 11, 2008

January sales look really bad

The NAR is going to do everything they can to delay reporting January sales. They are looking horrible. I thank the blogs out there that report the data promptly. For example, NOVA bubble fallout presented this data as part of Harriet's "Decade of sales" series. I plotted the data and did an ANOVA analysis. Oh... broken process. The wheels are falling off.















Yes, the data is 3.1 standard deviations below the decade mean. Oh... the decade median is the same number... how interesting. Overall, the 94 sales in Arlington country is a very poor showing; about half the sales needed to sustain prices. Cest la vie.

Anyone else curious to see how bad January's Case-Shiller index will look? Ouch. Evidence is building we're transitioning to desperation. But I have a few weeks until I update my real estate emotions series.

Got popcorn?
Neil

7 comments:

Rob Dawg said...

Watch that first step...

wannabuy said...

Watch that first step...

ROTFL

Sadly, I was doing the math and determined we'd still stay withing historical trends if sales continue to fall. We could have sales as low as 20% of peak (per my own 'back of the envelope' analysis of sales variation).

Got popcorn?
Neil

TJandTheBear said...

Neil,

Did you see the January California sales & use tax numbers? Down 9.7% YOY -- OUCH!

wannabuy said...

TJ,

My jaw is on the floor. Sales & use tax down 9.7% is staggering.

When CA starts to cut in ways that drives away jobs... it will be scary. I'm trying to get my mind around an estimate of 2008 & 2009 job losses just for CA. Note: I'm also doing this for FL, VA, and a few other states.

I think CA could lose 3 to 5 million jobs in two years.

My only 'regret' in all my predictions is we are now seeing what I thought would happen in 2007... happen in 2008. Cest la vie.

Got popcorn?
Neil

Rob Dawg said...

CA property tax arears is so bad I can't get anyone to confirm the actual shortfall.

Jobs aren't the problem, what we need is a breather in population growth. there's still lots of work to be done and a massive sub rosa entrepenurial spirit and ambitions.

Since you seem to remember my past predictions do you remember something like two years ago when i outlined some of the milestones? One was that new home buiders would book some months of negative sales. Another was that existing sales would see instances of only REOs selling for months, even quarters. (Obviously "only" means 2/3rds since there will always be base transactions for estate, family, divorce settlement arrangements, etc.)

We have now entered a period of "it can't get any worse" actually continuing to get worse.

TJandTheBear said...

Rob Dawg,

If anyone ever doubts you, we've got your back.

Mish had a post the other day talking about Lake Elsinore school district cuts. They had to escort the local union leader out of the meeting. Classic.

Rob Dawg said...

Ahh yes, I predicted the municipal fallout and the State cheating localities as well. Just don't forget I also expect some awesome investment opportunities at the bottom. You'll know when I'm getting ready when Congress reconsiders "accelerated depreciation."