In just another example of being “sort of right,” the San Diego Union Tribune reports on housing trends this morning.
The main story was from the Associated Press and is available online. Missing from the online version are the bits of local color which, according to the footnote, were added to the article by Union staff writer Roger Showley and appear in the tree-version. In response to the reported rise in unsold homes nationally, the article says “… in San Diego County, a different story is unfolding.” That’s the “sort of right” part.
According to Peter Dennehy, Senior vice president of Sullivan Group Realty Advisors, the inventory of unsold homes has been dropping steadily since February.”
So far, so good. Here is the trend for San Diego County homes for sale courtesy of Clarus Market Metrics. You can see it in all of its full-screen glory on our web site here.
But, Mr. Dennehy and the San Diego Union Tribune also reported:
By yesterday, (inventory of unsold homes) had fallen below the 10,000 level for the first time in four years. The 9,704 listings compares with 12,079 a month ago and represents 4.4 months of supply.
Don’t you guys read our blog?
If you did, you would have read our post yesterday about a new category which has been added to our Multiple Listing Service (MLS) — the “contingent” category. Sometime in the past month, all homes with accepted offers awaiting lender approval or accepted offers with a first right of refusal were hastily yanked from “active” status and placed in this new holding tank. Now you see them, now you don’t.
Here is what the Sandicor MLS tells us this morning. In San Diego county, there are 9,861 single-family homes and condominiums for sale, which is eerily similar to the number reported in our local rag. There are also, however, 2,860 “contingent” homes for sale in the county which last month would have shown up in the “active status” category. The total? Insert drumroll. 12721 total homes are offered for sale, which is actually a slightly larger number than reported for last month.
So, yes, inventory has been declining in the county since February. But, we did not see a 25% decline in inventory from a month ago. Compared to April, the May numbers are essentially unchanged.
Maybe this is not a big deal, but it’s fun to get your facts right.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kris Berg is Co-Owner and Designated Broker of San Diego Castles Realty. If not-so static web sites are your thing, go here at once where you will find loads of real estate information including homes for sale, market trends, floor plans and more. Kris's hobbies include fencing and spot welding. She likes kittens. 
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Add to your already well highlighted facts that through the wonderful thinking of our MLS provider, SANDICOR, traditional “Contingent” sales (those that have sold subject to the buyers home selling), have also been swept up into the new Contingent category, along with all of the short sales awaiting lender approval, which should be in the new category. Also, the MLS has no category on the Hot Sheet (changes to listing status) to let the agents know when a home is shifted from Active to Contingent status, nor can Contingent listings be imported into a Comparative Market Analysis to show clients. How all this flows through to the many real estate sites on the internet has yet to be figured out either. Wonderful.
Just another example of why journalists should be specialists in those fields upon which they are reporting. Great post.
The quality of any journalist’s story/analysis is inversely correlated with the expertise of the reader regarding the given subject. Which is to say that the greater one’s expertise in a given field, the dumber all journalists who attempt to write about that field will look. Very few journalists have the luxury of becoming true experts (”specialists”) in the fields they cover because it’s too difficult to make a living focusing on narrow areas of expertise – the general reading public is content with being approximately right regarding the big picture. If one wants true expertise – or perhaps, “purported expertise” is a better way of putting it – then s/he will seek out industry-specific consultants and analyses. Most of what we find in newspapers and other general readership publications could substitute for that light, fluffy paper found in the bathroom.