Which direction is the housing market moving? (Birmingham, Huntsville: days on market, transplants)
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I've checked out Trulia.com and Realtor.com and housing seems to be pretty reasonable in Huntsville. I've also looked at the housing price stats here on city-data but I don't have a really clear picture of whether housing prices are moving up or down in the Huntsville area.
I'd be interested to hear from people that live there. Does it seem like housing prices are going up or down? Are homes selling quickly?
I, like you, am concerned about way ahead for Huntsville real estate market. This is a site that provides monthly information. Here is March report for February data:
If you are not aware of it, ValleyMLS.com is really good source, though it wouldn't provide you with any more data than the other sites do, it's just the valleymls has a good interface and allows you to search by individual schools - a very neat feature.
Unfortunately for you, the North Alabama MLS realtors (or that group of people) have decided that they don't want you to know the square footage of homes for sale or for recently sold homes. They also don't want you to know the recent sales information (prices) - useful for a buyer to analyze comps and useful for sellers to analyze price points. That means it is impossible for you to calculate the $/sqft, a very important metric, for homes for sale or for recently sold homes. You have to go through a realtor (or someone who has access to the real deal database) to get these critical pieces of information.
Many if not most real estate organizations across the country make these data freely available online - but not here in Huntsville. Sorry, you lose.
Only just recently, "out of the kindness of their hearts" did the NAMLS decide to throw you a bone and make the addresses available online. Gee thanks.
I'll be honest...I still really and truly do not understand why the square footage is not published on the public site.
I know it is a legal issue, same with Birmingham, BUT from my perspective, if you are going to send out the actual MLS listings to buyers with square footage, what's the difference? So they don't get it on Valley, they call the agent, the agent sends the listing. The ValleyMLS listing should have the same disclaimers as the MLS database listings (all info to be verified blah blah blah...). In the end, the buyer is going to get the square footage.
Our RETS feeds are going out to Trulia, Zillow, ect (like 300 different websites) here next week (April 12 to be exact), so I don't know if that will enhance any type of search data on sites like Zillow (which in some areas does show sales data). To be honest, I don't know a extreme amount about these sites, as I never use them. I am not a very "technical" person either!
And, I AGREE about sales data...I really wish that our county probate records did a better job of recording data as well. In Florida where I last lived, the deed consideration that was filed was always the sales price...so you knew EXACTLY what that house sold for, and all you had to do was go to the Clerk of Court website or the Tax Assessor website (which has a handy link to the deed path on it). Here, we have to go in and figure deed and doc stamps to get a close idea what a house sold for, if it was withdrawn off the market and the sold data not recorded.
No one on MLS ever talks about sales data being made public at committee meetings. I will inquire....we have one on the 20th.
And, yes, the market has been slower this March than last. Numbers will be out soon, Oscar is working on them. March was better than February, but still down from last year. Prices steady. BUT, whenever you look at these facts/figures, they don't paint a realistic portrait. We as Realtors can throw out numbers to you all day but in the end, you have to go even furthur into the numbers to get a true idea of what is going on.
For example, March numbers were down from last year (for the area), but Madison was actually UP, and the average sold price was up and days on market was down. Homes still were selling for 98% of their list, but that figure does not take into consideration any price decreases on properties, 98% of what they were listed at when they went under contract. So, see, facts and figures really don't tell the true story. You have to look at each individual property and its location. We are like every market, we have our ups and our lulls. We are in a lull now. Yes, generally our lulls are not in the spring, but we had a very active fall, and I think the tax credits had a much better impact then than they are right now.
Last edited by LCTMadison; 04-07-2010 at 07:09 AM..
I still really and truly do not understand why the square footage is not published on the public site.
I know it is a legal issue
I doubt it is a legal issue. It's more likely a control issue. Information is power and the less power a buyer has, the more dependent they are on NAMLS realtors.
Check this out. None of these data displays or data require login; they are available to anyone, anytime, anonymously, free. It has a google map interface, it shows recent sales, $/sqft for both current listings and recent sales, provides plenty of filters, provides average $/sqft, and indicates whether a listing is short sale or not. The only thing it doesn't do is allow filtering on schools like valleymls does. The green icons are listings, the blue icons are recent sales; you can configure this display to show either or both (as it is shown here). You can download whatever is displayed into excel (see down below) and run all sorts of analysis. (Click the graphic expansion bars to make this more readable.)
But wait, there's more, the web interface above provides some basic tabular data, but you can also download just about every important metric for listings and recent sales into excel (see the download button above). I deleted some less important columns to make this graphic more readable online. Notice how you can see the DOM, what the last sale price was and what the square footage and is, you can add another column for $/sqft for either listings or recent sales.
Now, Charles, if you could provide NALMLS with ammo (info) as to the impact of all this data sharing to the realtors business. At different points in time: when the sharing first began (did people go "oh, well, I guess I don't need a realtor now, I can do it myself"?), and later, if any of this thinking tapered down ("well, had I known how to house-hunt, I woud've been a realtor myself"), and people went back to realtor representation? But my guess would be that the FSBO movement sprung out just because (some) people had enough with the antics of the MLS (realtor business).
Particularly to NALMLS: they don't offer the data publicly, but they allow realtors to send you CMAs if you ask them (without being under contract with the realtor). Moreover, simply by logging in with the MLS, you get the detailed listing report (sqft, age, HOA fee, address -even when it wasn't publicly available). It doesn't make sense to me that they would still withhold data from public viewing on valleymls.
I'd venture to say that more and more data will eventually become available (the address has been a contentious item for years), just wait for the BRAC dust to settle down, and the NALMLS perception that they still have the power by not showing it to fade away. I would also add this: If the Board thought "X thousand transplants are coming and they HAVE TO get a realtor just because we withhold essential data, and they don't know anything about the area (/market)", then they would be at least 50% wrong because some people start their search way early in their move and come here with the location in mind (to the subdivision). I bet they'd like to do the house-hunting research themselves, come here one weekend and say to the realtor "just show me listing # this, and this, and that and don't give me <you may also like this> bit".
With the Internet and the info widely available today, people want to be involved in every aspect of their life (including RE)>> think of the medical websites-we all check for symptoms, but evetually go to a Dr. if need be. We do know our limitations (I wouldn't repair the roof myself, but I paint the walls all the time), but RE (house-hunting) is not rocket science (or life threatening) as long the info is available to us.
Now, Charles, if you could provide NALMLS with ammo (info) as to the impact of all this data sharing to the realtors business. At different points in time: when the sharing first began (did people go "oh, well, I guess I don't need a realtor now, I can do it myself"?), and later, if any of this thinking tapered down ("well, had I known how to house-hunt, I woud've been a realtor myself"), and people went back to realtor representation? But my guess would be that the FSBO movement sprung out just because (some) people had enough with the antics of the MLS (realtor business).
Particularly to NALMLS: they don't offer the data publicly, but they allow realtors to send you CMAs if you ask them (without being under contract with the realtor). Moreover, simply by logging in with the MLS, you get the detailed listing report (sqft, age, HOA fee, address -even when it wasn't publicly available). It doesn't make sense to me that they would still withhold data from public viewing on valleymls.
I'd venture to say that more and more data will eventually become available (the address has been a contentious item for years), just wait for the BRAC dust to settle down, and the NALMLS perception that they still have the power by not showing it to fade away. I would also add this: If the Board thought "X thousand transplants are coming and they HAVE TO get a realtor just because we withhold essential data, and they don't know anything about the area (/market)", then they would be at least 50% wrong because some people start their search way early in their move and come here with the location in mind (to the subdivision). I bet they'd like to do the house-hunting research themselves, come here one weekend and say to the realtor "just show me listing # this, and this, and that and don't give me <you may also like this> bit".
With the Internet and the info widely available today, people want to be involved in every aspect of their life (including RE)>> think of the medical websites-we all check for symptoms, but evetually go to a Dr. if need be. We do know our limitations (I wouldn't repair the roof myself, but I paint the walls all the time), but RE (house-hunting) is not rocket science (or life threatening) as long the info is available to us.
I could barely understand this post, but I'll respond based on what I think I read.
People will always need a realtor, regardless of what data are made public.
Making all the data easily available online will actually save realtors time.
The last thing anyone wants to do when they are house hunting is contact a realtor (to get the missing data). People like to search anonymously and they don't want to be pestered by a realtor. When a prospective buyer finally needs to contact a realtor, he'll do so when he wants to.
Particularly to NALMLS: they don't offer the data publicly, but they allow realtors to send you CMAs if you ask them (without being under contract with the realtor). Moreover, simply by logging in with the MLS, you get the detailed listing report (sqft, age, HOA fee, address -even when it wasn't publicly available). It doesn't make sense to me that they would still withhold data from public viewing on valleymls.
Yes the effort to get this data even with current MLS public display restrictions is minimal. ...in fact there are little restrictions (only security of home entry and occupants) placed upon Realtors when information is requested by a consumer.
Its actually very easy to obtain if you know where to click ...hey ever heard of auto-responders?
Charles has likely had some personal experience with pesky Realtors
In fact I remember Elizabeth_G pulling some sold data for him while he was in the process of buying his home, all the while he was already working with another Realtor ...what's up with working with a Realtor and not wanting to tap their available info ...It happens all the time and its either a trust issue or they don't want to be pesky home shopper ...lol
Anyway all Realtors are not pesky this is simply a generalization that is not true.
In fact I remember Elizabeth_G pulling some sold data for him while he was in the process of buying his home, all the while he was already working with another Realtor ...what's up with working with a Realtor and not wanting to tap their available info ...It happens all the time and its either a trust issue or they don't want to be pesky home shopper ...lol.
What ??? !!! ??? and Charles did not pay Elizabeth a commission ??? !!! ???
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