Stats Entertainment!

Like so many others, I am still struggling with our new MLS — So much garbled data, missing fields, and stuff showing up on reports that is just flat-out wrong. Despite this, I will demonstrate my fortitude and forge ahead with some market statistics. I do this on the heels of the latest breaking news story published in our San Diego Union Tribune on Monday in which they (again) reported how our market is going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that means).

Since I have spent a year this week showing homes in both Scripps Ranch and Carmel Valley, I chose these two communties as our poster children. Absent accurate “days on market” statistics (see “Garbled Data” above), I am sticking to the basics: Number of monthly homes sold, median sale price, and median price per square foot.  All information is courtesy of the Sandicor Multiple Listing Service (MLS), detached homes only, and never has the disclaimer “All information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed” been so appropriate.

First, we compare number of homes sold in Scripps Ranch and Carmel Valley.

Obvious are the suspected seasonal variations, but month-over-month is as expected in Scripps Ranch (down), while our coastal cousin seems to be a bit more insulated.

As for median sale prices…

It looks like everyone was having a bad day in January. Aside from that, there is not much to glean from these admittedly small sample sizes except, perhaps, that Scripps is feeling the downward trend to a greater extent.

Finally, I give you the much anticipated price per square foot results.

Again, Carmel Valley has been holding tougher, but if you were to visualize a smooth trend line, both communities are trending in the same direction.

One thing Steve and I have both noticed, and this is a more seat-of-the-pants intuitive thing, is that while the coastal communities have tended to be more resilient, softening is ocurring. Further, because they have lagged in the price correction category, the price gap has widened. I expect that one of two things will happen. Either the western communities like Carmel Valley will close the gap with further downward price pressure, or the pendulum will swing the other way, and demand will return to the more affordable inland communities. I suspect it will be the latter. Homes closer to the big, blue, wet thing will always command a premium, but the spread is artificially great right now.

Or, I could be wrong.

Edited to add a snapshot of listing inventories, because commentor Jakob said he likes inventory statistics. Now, that is full service!