Case-Shiller: DC Declines Continue at Surprisingly Constant Rate

It’s time once again for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI).

For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – February data is released in April).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Washington DC area* as of February:

February 2009
Month to Month: Down 2.3%
Year to Year: Down 19.2%
Change from Peak: Down 33.1% in 33 months

The following chart shows the DC area HPI scaled such that the May 2006 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the DC area HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (January 2004).

February’s drop in prices continued the surprisingly straight-line trend that we have seen since September’s data—2.2% to 2.6% month-to-month drops every month for six months straight. As of February home prices in DC have “rewound” just over five years.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare the DC area’s performance to other areas across the country:

And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.

Since August, DC’s price decline has tracked incredibly close to ground already covered across the country in San Diego. DC’s overall post-peak decline of 33.1% is the ninth-largest of the 20 cities tracked by Case-Shiller.

*[Case-Shiller defines Washington DC as the entire Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of the District of Columbia and all or part of the following counties: Calvert MD, Charles MD, Frederick MD, Montgomery MD, Prince Georges MD, Alexandria City VA, Arlington VA, Clarke VA, Fairfax VA, Fairfax City VA, Falls Church City VA, Fauquier VA, Fredericksburg City VA, Loudoun VA, Manassas City VA, Manassas Park City VA, Prince William VA, Spotsylvania VA, Stafford VA, Warren VA, and Jefferson WV.]

Data Hungry First-Time Buyers in DC

This past weekend, the Washington Post featured Redfin first-time home buyers Kevin and Laura Wolfe in an article on a new breed of buyers who scour data-laden sites like Redfin to do their own research on the market. DC Redfin agent Fernando Ferrufino was quoted in the article explaining that he’s seeing more and more savvy buyers “who want to pull as much data as possible to justify what they want to pay for a home.”

True to our quest to provide the most data possible for your home search, Redfin just launched a version of our site that takes advantage of the new liberal data sharing policies made available by the recent settlement between the Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors. We also added a mortgage calculator and interactive sale-to-list graphs on all our neighborhood pages. Check out the Washington, DC graph below:

For more details on all of our new features, check out Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman’s post .

Biggest Discounts April Update

Time for another update on where buyers are currently getting the biggest discounts off asking price. Our goal in sharing this data is to help potential buyers to know which neighborhoods are softer in terms of sale price discounts off list price, to better equip you when making an offer, and help you know where to look for potential bargains.

In the chart below, we have taken all sales data from the last two months in the greater DC area and sorted it by zip code. We calculated the overall difference between the sale price and the list price. Note that this reflects the final list price, after all price drops in the listing. Any zips with fewer than ten sales are excluded from the top and bottom ten rankings, but interested readers may download the full data summary in Excel format (xls).

For a quick look at where a given zip code is located, just type it into the Redfin search box, or drop by the handy USNaviguide.com zip code map.

Here are the top ten zip codes with the largest overall discount:

At 3.7%, the overall discount for the greater DC area came in slightly lower than last month’s 4.0%. Unfortunately there was not much consistency between last month’s top 10 and this month’s top 10, as the discount ratios seem to be in a state of flux.

Here are the ten zip codes with the smallest discounts:

Of the 5,132 sales we tracked in the 1.5-month period, 65 homes sold for 20% or more off the asking price, while 273 homes sold for 5% or more above the asking price.

We’ve been tracking the discount trend for six months now, and have seen DC’s overall discount hold relatively steady between 3.2% off and 4.0% off. It will be interesting to see what the spring and summer bring to these stats.

Redfin Open House: Townhome in Burtonsville

Open House Dates and Times:
Sunday, April 19, 1 – 4 p.m.

3645 Autumn Glen Circle Burtonsville, MD 20866
Price at $280,000
Listing Agent: Taylor Connolly

Seller Comments

Coffee Shop of Choice:
Usually we just make espresso at home and drink it on the deck looking out into the wooded ravine behind the house.

Favorite Restaurant in the Area:

• Harry’s Café, a small neighborhood restaurant on Old Columbia Pike in Silver Spring.
• Seibel’s Restaurant, a traditional American restaurant.

Favorite Places to Go:
Tennis courts at Fairland Regional Park.

Best Features of the Home:
The large, spacious rooms. Most townhomes have many small rooms that can’t be used for anything.

The community is not cluttered. Unlike many townhome communities, the houses are not packed in and on top of each other. There is no house directly in front or directly behind this house, making it a quieter neighborhood with ample parking.

Has there been any remodeling since you purchased the home?:
Since we purchased, the house has been painted twice, and the carpets have been replaced in all but one room. Also, the kitchen floor was replaced.

Favorite Room:
The kitchen, which is rather large and open.

What’s in the neighborhood?:

• Cross Creek Golf Club is an upscale golfing community with a challenging golf course.
• Gunpowder Golf Club is an easier, less expensive course.
• Briggs Chaney Plaza and Briggs Chaney Auto Park are nearby, which make shopping and auto repairs convenient.
• The East County Community Center is also conveniently located nearby.

What you will miss most:
The quiet neighborhood and the uncluttered feeling of the townhomes.

Redfin By The Numbers, March Edition: Everybody’s Out Touring Homes

We’re kicking off a new series on Washington, DC Sweet Digs called Redfin By The Numbers. In this series, we’ll take a look at our brokerage stats to see how what our clients are doing right now reflects what’s happening in the market.

Let’s take a look at Redfin’s March numbers from the metro Washington, DC region.

Our Clients Love Our Fanatical Service

We survey every client and track every transaction in a central customer database. For the surveys we received in March from our clients in the DC area:

• 15 clients responded to our customer-satisfaction survey and posted a review online, the same number from February.
• All 15 of those clients, or 100%, would recommend Redfin to a friend, up from 93% in February.
  In these surveys, Redfin asks customers to rate the likelihood that they would recommend Redfin to a friend on a 0-to-10 scale. Customers who rated 6 or higher count as people who would recommend Redfin to a friend.

People Are Kicking Tires

In March, our metro Washington, DC clients were busy seeing homes and making offers:

• Redfin clients toured 601 homes in March, up from 225 in February.
• Our clients submitted 31 signed offers on homes, up from 16* in February.
  o Marshall Park: 17 offers
  o Fernando Ferrufino: 7 offers
  o Taylor Connolly: 7 offers
• 3 of those offers, or 10%, were on bank-owned foreclosures, up from 0 in February.

*In the previous post with the February numbers, we reported the number of unsigned offers we received from Redfin clients. Starting with this post, we’re tracking the number of signed offers our clients submitted to listing agents.

We also had a great home-buying class in March. About 45 people came to our office in Falls Church to learn about the home-buying process and meet our agents. There were a lot of questions about the first-time home-buyer tax credit. Check out the slide deck from the class.

It’s Taking 34 Days To Close On A Home

In March, the time it took our clients in the metro DC area to close on their homes was slightly longer than in February:

• For our clients who bought re-sales, the average time from initial agreement on terms to the close of of the deal was 34 days, up from 32 days in February.
• All of our clients successfully financed their homes, the same as in February
• All of our client’s deals passed the home inspection; in February 1 failed the inspection.
• Of our closed deals, the average discount off list price for homes sold was 5.64%, up from 3.04% in February.

Look For Our April Report

We’ll be back next month with a report on what happened in April. What numbers would you like to see in our April report?

Countrywide Tops Local FHA Lending

Mortgage Data Web sent me an email today with the top FHA mortgage lenders in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metro area for January of this year. If you’re looking at a purchase or refi these are the companies with the lion’s share of the business:

If you’re debating between a mortgage lender or a bank check out our recent blog post Mortgage Brokers or Lenders? Depends on Whom You Ask….