Interpreting the Market Reports

How to Interpret my Market Reports – Part One

Each week Altos Research updates these terrific charts on my site as well as the executive summary, and the far more detailed market update report. When you subscribe to these market reports you’ll receive the executive summary report (pictured to the left) and can request the more detailed market update if you are a glutton for the data!

If you follow along each week it becomes fairly easy to get a good idea of how the market is trending for the active properties. The key word is "active."

Early on in the spring selling season there are few comps to review for sold properties, but there are homes on the market and if we look at the data in these reports there is a wealth of information available to help us price well.

In this post, let’s look at the top of the report and focus in on what those numbers mean to Bethesda homes for sale in zip code 20816…

Real Time Market Profile

Median List Price: Why the median instead of the average? Because it’s right in the middle. An average can be skewed far more easily so the median is a better way to look at price
Percent with Price Decrease: This stat is a very good way to look at how sellers are reacting to the market and the overall movement of inventory. The 36% with the price decrease all have corresponding high days on market numbers.
- Under $1M there are 5 homes with price reductions, some quite significant. All have condition issues that either should have been addressed before market or should have been corrected with price out of the starting gate.
Percent Relisted: A number under 10% is considered normal. Depending on the market this might be a result of homes that are holdovers from one season to the next or could be sellers that relisted with a new agent.
- Under $1M there is one home that started as a FSBO and has reduced in price and finally listed with a professional. They were overpriced by $200K. Another home relisted with the same agent, whose company affiliation changed. Also overpriced considerably from the beginning and now has a corresponding 105 days on market.
Percent Flip: This is not seen so much in this zip code. But if the property were an incredible bargain, someone might have bought it and quickly renovated it for resale (or a flip)
Market Action Index: Whether or not we are trending in a buyers or sellers market. The threshold is 30 (more to come about this stat in part three…). We are overall still considered a buyers market but that doesn’t hold true for the individual quartiles since there is much more activity in the under $1M range.