When My Charts Prove Me Wrong

I love working with numbers. I know that makes me somewhat odd, but you can't work in real estate without having a pretty good grasp of math. From calculating square footage prices to loan payments to listing values, our whole business floats on a sea of numbers. For me, charting sales trends and looking at raw sales data can often lead to insights about the market that let me serve my clients by providing insights about how high to bid on a specific listing or whether a specific listing agent tends to overprice or underprice his properties. 

I figured I was onto a sure trend based on the approaching end of the federal tax credit. I thought smart buyers would be jumping into properties at a faster rate than usual, especially as we moved into April and the deadline was only weeks and days away. I downloaded all the sales data from this year in Sonoma County and started working with an Excel spreadsheet.

I looked at Days on Market.

I looked at sales and list prices

I looked at Days In Escrow

I looked at Sales Per Week.

What I expected was a chart showing higher prices, higher volume, shorter escrows, and an increase in people paying the listing price. Instead of a lovely set of charts showing all those beautiful ideas, I got bupkus. Nada. No trends. Northing.

The chart here is indicating a slight increase in sales from Week 1 in January to Week 14 in April, but in a normal year we would be looking at sales volumes naturally going up due to the selling season in the early Spring. These numbers are almost anemic compared to past years. There's just no trend showing up that is outside the norm.

The best thing about using the scientific method to approach problems is that it can reveal whether your hypothesis is right or wrong. I hate being wrong...but the numbers don't lie.

There may be some stats I didn't think of looking at. We may see a short, intense burst of action in the next week. Still, it appears to me that the smart people I thought wanted to take advantage of the tax credit are already in the mix. What I should have considered is that people smart enough to want the tax credit were smart enough to start looking last year.