appraisers

Real estate price cycles & getting bid up

March 14, 2023 By Ryan Lundquist 9 Comments

I’ve got two things on my mind today. Price cycles and getting bid up during the first week. Well, and banks failing. And my 23rd wedding anniversary this week. And getting in shape. Anyway, let’s look at the first two things.

UPCOMING (PUBLIC) SPEAKING GIGS:
3/24/23 How to Think Like an Appraiser (at SAR)
3/28/23 Downtown Regional MLS meeting
4/1/23 NAA Conference in Sacramento
4/13/23 Realtist Meeting
5/4/23 Event with UWL TBA
5/22/23 Yolo YPN event TBA

HELLO, I’M A BANK FAILURE EXPERT

I had no idea there were so many bank failure experts, but they’ve been all over social media this week. Haha. Seriously though, this is something to watch, and we need time to see if other banks will follow Silicon Valley Bank.

NEW PRICE CYCLE GRAPHS

It’s been a number of months since I’ve updated this visual, so I wanted to share a new version. Here’s price change in Sacramento since the days of shag carpet in 1975. This is based on the Freddie Mac Price Index, and I adjusted it for inflation since that helps show more pronounced change.

Here’s what the nominal price data looks like (not adjusted for inflation):

A FEW THINGS ABOUT PRICE CYCLES

1) Up and down: Markets go up and down. Bottom line. A simplistic explanation of real estate is that it’s about supply and demand, but what happens behind the scenes with the Fed and financial policy is a massive factor in shaping the housing market (including supply and demand).

2) Seasonal price bumps: The graphs above don’t show it, but a spring seasonal uptick can happen during a declining cycle. For instance, the spring in 2007 and 2008 saw a seasonal increase in both volume and prices. We’ll see what happens in coming months now that rates are higher, but in early 2023 there has been a seasonal price bump so far. I find in many neighborhoods there was a huge price decline from May 2022, but now prices are flat or slightly higher in light of growing spring demand. In short, the sharp decline from last year has seemed to flatten over the past few months.

By the way, appraisers, what box are you checking right now?

3) Cycle length of five to six years: Prices in Sacramento tend to drop for five to six years when there is a declining trend, and we should be in tune with that. But it would be a mistake to say we’re locked into a predetermined period of time for this cycle ahead. Ultimately, the market feels so uncertain right now with high inflation, the Fed trying to break something, and the volatility of mortgage rates, so we need to see what happens (while being in touch with the normal trend). Also, it’s worth noting we have such a weird dynamic of sellers sitting out of the market right now, and we’ve only scraped the surface of understanding what this will mean for the next few years.

STARTING TO SELL QUICKLY

The market has been heating up for the spring, and properties are starting to sell quickly again. This is nothing at all like early 2022 in the stats, but half of pendings since March spent 15 days or less on the market, and that’s lightning speed compared to the ice bath fall season.

GETTING BID UP DURING THE FIRST WEEK

Yes, some properties are getting bid up today, but it’s nothing like early 2022 levels. If bidding up happens, it typically occurs during the first week or so. When properties get bid up, it’s usually 5% or less above the original price. And the longer homes are on the market, the lower they tend to sell from their original price (duh, thanks). Right now, we’re seeing about a quarter of sales close above the original price, which is a little lower than normal for the time of year, and profoundly lower than the last two years.

GOING BELOW DURING THE FIRST WEEK

There are also lots of properties that sold BELOW the original price in the first week. Kudos to sellers for listening to buyers and responding quickly.

SOME FRESH VISUALS

A few people asked me for more visuals like this, so here goes. These graphs show the relationship between days on market and how properties sold compared to their original list price. By the way, it’s easy to only see the glowing portion of these visuals, but don’t ignore the rest. Oh, and the original list price obviously makes a huge difference here. I find when properties get bid way up today, it’s often a reflection of being priced way too low.

LASTLY, THANK YOU

I’ve had so many speaking gigs lately, and I’m having an absolute blast. I wanted to say thank you everyone for showing up. I’m deeply honored. And thank you to event organizers for having me out. Photos from Carlos.

I hope this was helpful.

MARKET STATS: I’ll have lots of market stats out this week on my social channels, so watch Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Questions: Are you seeing a spring bump when pulling comps? Or are prices still down? What do you think of the new visuals? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

A spring bump in the housing market

March 9, 2023 By Ryan Lundquist 26 Comments

It’s a bump. Do you feel it? The housing market has been waking up in 2023, and we’re starting to see an uptick in lots of different stats. Let’s talk about it. This post is designed to skim quickly or digest slowly.

background with wooden table and grunge blue wall. A white banner in the middle of the image says, "A spring bump in the housing market."

UPCOMING (PUBLIC) SPEAKING GIGS:
3/10/23 PCAR Market Update Lunch & Learn
3/24/23 How to Think Like an Appraiser (at SAR)
3/28/23 Downtown Regional MLS meeting
4/1/23 NAA Conference in Sacramento
4/13/23 Realtist Meeting
5/4/23 Event with UWL TBA

A SPRING BUMP IS UPON US

It’s normal to see more attention on the housing market in the spring – even during a downward year. I have lots of price recap images to share below, but check out these two (weekly and monthly). Not every local county looks like this, but the region did show a price bump from January to February.

BUT NOW RATES ARE 7%

Lots of stats from February reflect properties that got into contract in January when rates were 6%. Thus, the real tell for the spring trend will be stats ahead over the next two months that show what 7% rates do to the market.

DOOM VS ROSY

These days many people embrace either a housing doom narrative or a rosy one, but let’s try to let the stats form our understanding instead of imposing one big idea on the market. Ultimately, housing stats are like life. Not everything fits into one neat little box or ideology. Moreover, markets are often a mixture of lots of different trends, so not everything is going to be totally dark or glowing.

HOT POCKET VIBES

Sales volume is ticking up right now for the spring, but it’s also subdued from a normal level. This is why I’m describing the market as heating up for the spring, but still frozen (like a hot pocket taken out of the microwave too early).

MISSING 40% OF BUYERS STILL

Over the past 90 days, there were about 2,200 fewer sales compared to last year and even the pre-pandemic normal. The truth is we’ve seen some of the worst volume on record lately. It’s no joke. Let’s not forget over 3,300 sales closed though. I think sometimes the part of the market that is happening gets lost or ignored in the midst of sensational stats.

GET READY FOR SUPER SENSATIONAL STATS

Some of the stats look bonkers right now. Days on market was freakishly low last year, and now it’s basically a bit above the normal trend, which ends up creating a sensational comparison. I can picture it now, “Dude, the median days on market grew by 428%.” Okay, technically true, but very sensational.

IT’S GETTING TIGHT (ESPECIALLY AT THE BOTTOM HALF)

In January and February there were about 2,000 fewer new listings compared to last year (and 2,500 from the pre-pandemic normal). In short, the market is starting to feel tight because we’ve seen sellers sitting out to a greater extent these past few months. Here’s a look at listings and sales to give some clues into what competition feels like at various price ranges. It’s true that we don’t need a huge amount of supply to see the market decline, but having anemic new listings certainly makes things more competitive. Imagine what the market would feel like right now with 2,000 more active listings…

MULTIPLE OFFERS ARE GROWING

It’s not a shocker to see more multiple offers in both recent sales and current pendings. It’s still nowhere close to the same level of competition in early 2022 though. Do you see that uptick lately? That’s what early spring should look like. Remember, it’s normal to see multiple offers, but not normal to see the freakish levels from 2021 and 2022.

BUYERS ARE GETTING CONCESSIONS:

49% of transactions in Sacramento County last month had some form of a concession to the buyer (credit for repairs, credit for closing costs, rate buydowns, etc…). Placer County was more like 43%. This is good news for buyers, and it also speaks to sellers doing a better job listening.

DON’T GET CARRIED AWAY WITH A HOT NARRATIVE:

There are many metrics that show the market is heating up for the spring, but the trend right now is nothing like 2021 or 2022. In short, whenever someone says, “It’s 2021 all over again,” a puppy dies. Okay, that’s probably not true, but all I’m saying is statistically speaking it’s not 2021.

BUT SERIOUSLY, PROPERTIES ARE STARTING TO GO QUICKLY:

Half the pendings over the past two weeks went in fifteen days or fewer. These stats will eventually show up in closed sales in March and April.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FIRST WEEK

Properties that sold above their original list price tended to get bid up during the first week. Not a huge shocker. Of course, some properties are being priced too low to generate interest, so don’t think of this as buyers paying 10% over market value. Nope. But if you price 10% too low, you’ll likely get bid up. By the way, whenever I hear about properties with 15 offers, the price is almost always somewhere around $450,000 (and likely priced low).

BRO, REDUCE THE PRICE ALREADY

The market isn’t so overpriced like it was during the fall, but there is still a need for price reductions. Here’s a look at price drops among recent pending contracts. This is proof price reductions work. The real takeaway is to see a good chunk of price drops below $500,000. While this is an incredibly hot price range, it’s also proof buyers won’t pay any amount.

Okay, I’ve said enough. Probably too much. A few last recap images for anyone interested.

MARKET RECAP VISUALS

Year-over-year stats don’t tell the full story of the market right now. Someone might say, “No biggie, we’re down 8% from last year.” That’s technically true, but it fails to recognize that eight percent from one year ago is NOT the same thing as eight percent from the height of spring in 2022.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR

MONTH-TO-MONTH

OTHER VISUALS:

I hope this was helpful.

MARKET STATS: I’ll have lots of market stats out this week on my social channels, so watch Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Questions: What are you seeing right now in the trenches of escrow? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

Torturing housing stats & recapping 2022

January 11, 2023 By Ryan Lundquist 28 Comments

If you torture the stats long enough, they’ll confess to anything. Have you heard that before? Well, it’s true in real estate. If we’re not careful, we can make numbers say anything, whether for a glowing or doom narrative. Today, I want to talk about the danger of annual stats right now, and then I have a massive market update to share. This post is designed to skim by topic or digest slowly. I hope you get some value here, whether you’re local or not.

dark brown rustic aged barn wood planks background. A black font against a white label says, "making housing stats say what we want."

UPCOMING (PUBLIC) SPEAKING GIGS:
1/12/23 McKissock / Appraisal Buzz Webinar (register here)
1/18/23 WCR Market Update in Cameron Park (register here)
1/19/23 Big market update at SAR on Zoom (register here)
1/20/23 NARPM Luncheon
1/23/23 Residential RoundUP on Zoom (register here (free))
1/27/23 Q&A Appraiser Marketing (free Zoom webinar) (sign up here)
2/8/23 SAFE Credit Union “Snacks & Facts” (for RE) (register here)
3/10/23 PCAR Market Update Lunch & Learn (detailed TBD)
3/28/23 Downtown Regional MLS meeting
4/1/23 NAA Conference in Sacramento

IT’S EASY TO ABUSE ANNUAL NUMBERS RIGHT NOW

Last year had two parts. It was super-hot at first, and then it got really dull, and this makes for a weird combination when putting these parts together.

A) HIDING THE TREND WITH ANNUAL STATS

Check out this visual. When comparing all sales from 2021 with 2022, the median price technically went up 7%. This is statistically true because there was so much growth during the first part of the year, BUT focusing on annual stats hides the huge shift in recent months.

A table to show price change in the Sacramento region (year over year, May 2022 to current, and annual change).

CLARIFYING ANNUAL STATS: Annual means we’re comparing ALL of 2021 with ALL of 2022. So this is where we’re comparing the median price of 28,000 sales in 2021 with 22,000 in 2022. So we are literally looking at the entire year and comparing it to another year. It’s actually a cool way to see the market and gauge appreciation over time. In a normal year, I would be a fan of sharing annual appreciation rates, but this year I think it hides the real trend happening in the market. So if I were to only focus on the annual difference this year and say, “The median went up 7%,” it’s just not telling the full story of what is happening. I think looking at year-over-year stats (December 2021 vs December 2022) and month-to-month stats (May to December) really helps us see the market trend. I think it’s fine to share annual stats, but it can quickly become misleading or stink of greasy salesperson vibes.

If annual vs current stats were a meme…

B) FALSE NARRATIVES FROM ANNUAL STATS

The danger of focusing on annual stats right now is annual numbers look far sexier than the current market, so it’s easy to hide the real trend by looking to older figures. It would be like looking at the average price of bitcoin over the past two years instead of the price right now.

ANNUAL VS. THE REAL TREND:

Annual volume was down about 20%.
Volume lately has been down over 40%.

It took an average of 25 days to sell last year.
Last month it took an average of 49 days to sell.

The median price rose 7% annually last year.
The median price declined 15% since May.

A meme of an older man holding a coffee cup. The meme says at the top, "looking at annual stats," and then the bottom picture with the man looking at the camera says, "But not getting stuck on them."

C) GAINING & LOSING CREDIBILITY WITH ANNUAL STATS

Some real estate professionals are going to gain credibility this year and others will lose it. My advice? Be transparent with the stats and DO NOT create a narrative that obscures the real trend. Likewise, don’t impose a doom narrative on the market either. I wrote more about this last week. Look, we all have ideas about the future, but let’s be real about the market that actually exists.

Thanks for being here.

—–——– DEEP LOCAL MARKET UPDATE ———––

We are in a market of change, and change continued last month.

Scroll quickly or digest slowly.

SHARING POLICY: I welcome you to share some of these images on your social channels or in a newsletter. In case it helps, here are 6 ways to share my content (not copy verbatim). Thanks.

VOLUME WILL IMPROVE AS AFFORDABILITY GETS BETTER:

We are in a valley right now where we’re missing about 40% of the market. There is no sugarcoating this. The reality is lots of prospective buyers are on the sidelines due to the struggle to afford current prices. With that said, more than half of buyers are present and shopping, so the market is still moving.

This week I talked with someone who is actively hunting for homes with an agent, but he is still hesitant. He said it’s nice to maybe get tens of thousands off the list price, but he is still concerned about the lofty monthly mortgage payment. Look, sharp price declines have been helpful for affordability, but rates above 6% are still making it tough to make things work. Anyway, the market will figure this out, and more buyers will come back as affordability improves. That’s the truth.

DECEMBER VOLUME WAS NOT PRETTY:

December had the lowest volume in Sacramento County over the past 20 years, and the region is basically tied with 2007. There are two stats here. There are over 800 missing sales from the pre-pandemic normal, but there were nearly 1,300 sales that happened. I recommend for real estate friends to know all the numbers, but in terms of business, focus on the part of the market that is happening rather than the part that isn’t.

NOTE: Placer County has experienced massive growth this past decade, so a comparison to the previous decade looks different than Sacramento County. Still, it was a really dull month of closed sales.

PRICE STATS ARE DOWN ABOUT 4-5% FROM ONE YEAR AGO:

Here’s a look at stats compared to last year. Remember, closed sales in December really tell us what the market used to be like in November when the bulk of these properties got into contract. In a normal year we tend to see price metrics dip from December to January, so let’s see what happens ahead.

PRICE STATS ARE DOWN CLOSER TO 15% FROM MAY:

We’ve seen significant change since May, but the market still doesn’t feel affordable to lots of people. I’m not trying to be negative. This is just how it is, and we’ll see more buyers come back to the market as affordability improves. Keep in mind median price change doesn’t necessarily mean value is actually down by that amount. This is why I advise looking to neighborhood comps rather than imposing a county or ZIP code price metric on a neighborhood.

PRICES WENT DOWN FROM NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER:

Looking at sequential months is key so we don’t just get stuck or hyper-focused on last year (the past). Like I said above, it’s easy to hide behind older stats if we’re not careful.

OTHER PRICE VISUALS:

These visuals help show that prices are a bit lower than last year, but check out the sharp change in order to get here.

TAKING ABOUT A WEEK LONGER TO SELL:

It took about a week longer to sell last month in Sacramento County compared to the pre-pandemic normal (red line). I’ll push out other county visuals soon too (especially during my presentations coming up). However, this is over twice the time it took last year, so it feels dramatic to see 45 days lately. Historically this isn’t all that high, but it’s been a real adjustment to get used to a market where not everything is selling in the first weekend. However, keep in mind these figures only represent properties that closed escrow, and there are lots of listings that didn’t close (key point).

NEW LISTINGS ARE COMING:

We’re seeing more listings hit the market, but it’s very normal for new listings to not hit their stride until March or so. Buyers are waking up for the year though and they’re hungry for quality listings after a stale fall season of overpriced leftovers. And yes, serious buyers are shopping – even in the rain. I’ll push out some inventory images soon, but on paper things are pretty normal in terms of the months of housing supply. We technically really don’t have many listings on the market, but like I keep saying, it doesn’t matter about technicalities right now. The market has been declining despite low supply since affordability is the bigger issue. Now let’s see what 2023 brings. As I said last week, we can expect more attention on the market during the spring.

ANNUAL RECAP:

Okay, here are some annual recap images organized by county. These visuals include every single sale for the entire year, so it’s a weird combination of a blazing hot market and a dull market. I deliberately didn’t include price stats on most recap visuals because I honestly think it would lead to confusion (and some might even think it was misleading).

2021 comparison: 2021 did have slightly higher volume, so the ideal is to compare the pre-pandemic average to 2022, and I’ll roll out some stats soon to show you what I mean. But it’s still a legit comparison to compare the past two years. For instance, volume was down 22% from last year, but it was down 19% from the pre-pandemic average. Yes, there is a clear difference, but we’re not talking about twice as many sales last year. Granted, new construction numbers were truly sensational in 2021, so it’s honestly a mistake to only focus on 2021 vs 2022 numbers for that niche. More on that eventually.

SACRAMENTO REGION:

SACRAMENTO COUNTY:

PLACER COUNTY:

EL DORADO COUNTY:

YOLO COUNTY:

MARKET STATS: I’ll have lots of market stats out this week on my social channels, so watch Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Thanks for being here.

SHARING POLICY: I welcome you to share some of these images on your social channels or in a newsletter. In case it helps, here are 6 ways to share my content (not copy verbatim). Thanks.

Questions: What stands out to you above? What are you seeing happen in the market right now? I’d love to hear your take.

If you liked this post, subscribe by email (or RSS). Thanks for being here.

The housing market has shifted

May 11, 2022 By Ryan Lundquist 22 Comments

The housing market has shifted over the past month. That’s what the stats are showing, and it’s what we’re hearing from the trenches. Today I want to highlight what’s been happening in Sacramento, and unpack what I mean by “shift” too since this word can be sensationalized. If you’re not local, what are you seeing in your area? I’d love to hear your take.

small wooden windows on the white wall. Blue window frame. The caption reads, "The housing market has shifted."

WEBINAR I’M DOING NEXT WEEK: On Thursday May 19th at 10am I’ll be doing a deep market update for SAR to talk about the latest trends. We’ll have an hour to talk through lots of stuff. SIGN UP HERE.

Skim quickly or digest slowly.

A photo of Uncle Rico from the movie Napolean Dynamite. The caption reads sellers aren't stuck in 1982, but they're stuck in early 2022

Listen to Uncle Rico: The housing market temperature has changed from early 2022, so it’s a different market today. My advice? Don’t get stuck in the past. And sorry if you don’t get the meme (Uncle Rico was stuck in ’82).

How I’m describing the market: Overall, the market still feels elevated in that we are seeing a higher-than-normal amount of competition. And frankly, sellers are still in the driver’s seat. Yet, there is no mistaking a blatant temperature change or shift about a month ago. It seems an inflection point occurred where we really noticed the effect of higher mortgage rates on buyers. Some buyers have backed off due to declining affordability, and others have become much more sensitive to price. In other words, buyers are hyper aware of lofty monthly mortgage payments, so they have higher expectations about what they’re buying. It would be an error to call this market cold, but there is no mistaking a cooler temperature from the scalding temperature of January through March.

Fewer pending contracts (big news): We’ve seen a dip in pending contracts over the past few weeks, which speaks to shifting demand. The number of pendings was down 12% this April compared to last year. Where will this black line go in coming time? That’s the big question. Will buyers adapt to a new environment of higher rates or will we continue to see fewer buyers playing the market? Let’s keep watching. Visual made using data from Trendgraphix.

A line graph to show multiple years of pendings from January to December each year (and a dip this year)

Lower volume in April (but not super low):

The number of sales in April was clearly lower than last year, but still on the lower end of normal when considering many years. Granted, with pending volume down in April, this will likely mean May sales volume will be down. As I said last week, I think it’s key to focus on what is happening with volume.

The word on the street:

The stories of today become the stats of tomorrow. A few days ago, I asked Instagram how many offers properties are getting. Not too long ago this poll would’ve showed far fewer homes getting “1-2” and especially “0”. I know, this isn’t scientific, but this lines up with other stats right now.

A poll on Instagram stories to ask how many offers people are getting on properties

Fewer Multiple Offers

In April we saw fewer multiple offers compared to March. It’s atypical to see the peak of multiple offers in March (only happened during the pandemic in 2020). This supports the idea that the market seems to have shifted early for the spring. Keep in mind this visual is based on sales. When looking at pending contracts since May, 55% have had multiple offers. Granted, 55% is still slightly higher than normal, but there is a huge difference with 72% of sales getting multiple offers two months ago and 55% lately.

A line graph to show multilpe offers since 2016

Price reductions are starting to increase:

We’re starting to see price reductions tick up according to Altos Research. The number of reductions is much higher than last year, but closer to levels seen in May 2019. In short, we are not at dangerous levels, so it’s important to remember what normal feels like and not sensationalize the number of reductions at the moment. It’s important to note that every single price range is experiencing reductions, which tells us you can overprice in any neighborhood. Let’s keep watching this by the week and change our narrative accordingly.

Added: I just ran some stats, and Opendoor represented 13% of all price reductions this week in the region. The iBuyer model doesn’t account for the growth in reductions overall, but I’m just saying, this is something to watch as we crunch stats and decipher trends.

A line graph to show price reductions in Sacramento County since 2019

More listings are hitting the market (not many though):

The number of listings has been increasing, but inventory is still sparse. On one hand, we are on the cusp of finally breaking out of a one-month supply of listings, but on any given day we still have at least one thousand fewer listings available compared to normal. I’ve heard some stories of sellers looking to list and “sell at the top”, but sellers have not rushed the market by any stretch. Keep in mind if we start to see fewer pendings, this will help inventory increase since there will essentially be more available listings that didn’t sell.

Price growth looks to have slowed, but…

The median price in the region dipped from March to April, which is uncommon for the time of year. I’m not ready to say prices have peaked for the year since we need a couple more months of stats. What I am saying is April sales have clearly started to show a reaction to higher mortgage rates, so it’s not a surprise to see the unhealthy growth between January and March begin to fade. Yet, I watch prices by the week (third image below), and the most recent two weeks have shown an uptick, so let’s wait to see how the entire month of May looks. Keep in mind most local counties saw a modest price uptick in April instead of a dip like the region saw (see stats below).

It does look like we are starting to see price deceleration. Instead of being up 20% from last year, prices are up closer to 15%. This is a good thing and what we want to see happen. We’ve needed the crazy pace to slow.

Buyers are starting to pay less above list price:

This visual shows a flattening trend for buyers paying above the list price. I suspect in another month we will see this line decline since demand has begun to shift. But here’s the thing. In a normal year, we should be seeing buyers on average pay about 1% BELOW the list price, but this past month buyers still paid about 3% ABOVE the list price. Granted, these figures represent sales, so this tells us more about what the market was like one month ago when these properties got into contract. But like I’ve been saying, the market is still not back to a normal level yet. This is exactly why it’s important to unpack what a shift in demand looks like. And if people aren’t willing to read more than just the title… Well, I can’t help that.

I better stop before this becomes a dissertation. Do you see what I mean by a market shift though? I hope this was helpful.

Thanks for being here.

—–——– BIG MARKET UPDATE FOR THOSE INTERESTED ———––

This image says "Caution" and it's yellow and black. Then it says "big monthly market update below." Skim or digest slowly.

QUICK SUMMARY:

After some very rapid (unhealthy) price growth in the beginning of the year, it looks like we are starting to see the return of more sanity to the housing market lately. Granted, we are in the midst of the beginning of a temperature change, so we’ll have to continue to watch to understand how it all unfolds. For now, it’s best to describe the market as being elevated, but softening. In short, when priced right, properties are poised to get multiple offers, but when priced too high, properties are going to sit and not sell.

A QUICK RECAP:

SHARING POLICY: I welcome you to share some of these images on your social channels or in a newsletter. In case it helps, here are 6 ways to share my content (not copy verbatim). Thanks.

Some visuals…

YEAR OVER YEAR:

Year over year stats are important to digest, but don’t forget to look at month to month stats to understand what the market is doing right now. Also, not every location and price range have the same trend.