The data below are the main trends for the City of Los Angeles, but you can see the housing market data for the entire LA area here.

The perfect storm for sellers in LA

Buyers? They’re definitely hungry in LA. March saw a 24.6% spike in home sales from February, making it one of the most active months in the last year for home sales.

Sellers? The extraordinarily few home sellers out don’t have to worry about much competition. Inventory in the city of LA in March was down 16.7% from February, and down 38.7% from last March. That’s the lowest we’ve seen in the last year. When you combine the fast pace of sales with the low number of homes for sale, we’re seeing a lot of competition, bidding wars, fast sales and frustrated buyers.

In fact, of LA-area cities with more than 100 homes for sale, only one showed monthly growth: Inventory in Beverly Hills grew 0.4%, from 263 homes for sale in February to 264 homes in March. Even still, inventory there was down 29.8% year over year.

Prices stay put

Even with the increased demand, buyers aren’t ready to pay much more to buy a home in the LA area. The median single-family home price is up 5% month over month, and 0.6% year over year to $355,000. Condos moved a bit more, with a median price increase of 5.5% month over month to $290,000. If the inventory freefall continues, buyers will have to make a choice: Offer more money, or stay on the sidelines.

For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For a more detailed explanation of how the Case-Shiller Home Price Index 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. – December data is released in February).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of January:

Sixteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw a decrease in their HPI between December and January (one less than between November and December): Washington DC joined Phoenix and Miami with an increase. No data was available for Charlotte in January. Oddly, San Francisco had the largest drop at 2.5%.

Here’s a look at the latest local tiered data, back through 2000:

And here’s a closer look at the recent changes, with the vertical and horizontal axes zoomed in to show just the last year:

All three of LA’s tiers fell in January. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.2%, the middle tier fell 1.2%, and the high tier decreased 0.8%.

In this next chart, I’ve visualized the month to month trends of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Green and above the horizontal axis if they were increasing in the month charted, red and below the axis if they were decreasing. I’ve excluded 2000 through 2004 since they looked largely the same as 2005 (mostly green).

Another gain here, with the best January showing since 2006, when 11 markets were increasing.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Eight cities hit new post-peak lows in January: Tampa (not shown above) at 47.9% off peak, Atlanta at 37.4% off peak, Chicago at 35.9% off peak, Las Vegas at 61.6% off peak, New York at 25.3% off peak, Cleveland (not shown) at 22.4% off peak, Portland at 30.3% off peak, and Seattle at 32.4% off peak. The 10-city and 20-city composites both also hit new lows, both at 34.4% off peak.

Methodology: The Case-Shiller index tracks price changes in sets of homes of similar size and style to better determine changes in what people are willing to pay for the same home over time. If data is available from an earlier transaction for the same home, the two sales are paired and treated as a “repeat sale.” Repeat sales that are too far apart, sales between family members, lot splits, remodels, and property type changes (e.g. from single-family to condos) are excluded from the calculations. All remaining repeat sales are totaled together and weighted based on the time between each sale, then the data for the most recent three months is averaged together to create a given month’s index value (i.e. – September’s index represents the average of the data from July through September).

The three price tiers plotted in the charts below simply represent the top, middle, and bottom third of all sales, based on the initial sale price. In other words, if there were 3,000 sales in the three-month period, 1,000 of them would be in the low tier, 1,000 in the middle tier, and 1,000 in the high tier, by definition.

You want the best referrals, ratings and information to make that decision. That’s why we’ve expanded Redfin Open Book to include reviews of handymen and stagers in the Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego areas.

Now home-selling clients can search for the best professionals to prepare their home, then rate and review the work done once the transaction closes. Every time a Redfin client uses a service provider, she’ll have an opportunity to review their work, and those reviews will accumulate over time. Open Book’s information is verifiable – only Redfin clients will review service providers—not some handyman’s brother making Mr. Joe Hammer look good when he’s actually just barely adequate. Plus if you sell with Redfin, we’ll match up to $250 toward your home improvements.

We’ve partnered with some of the best professionals we’ve worked with and screened them thoroughly. We’ll post every review, good, bad, or ugly, right on their profile just like we do with our own agents.

Besides Southern California, Open Book for Sellers is now available in the Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Seattle and the Washington DC area.

For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For a more detailed explanation of how the Case-Shiller Home Price Index 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. – December data is released in February).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of December:

Eighteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw a decrease in their HPI between November and December (one less than between October and November): Only Phoenix (for the third month in a row) and Miami saw an increase. This month Detrioit beat out Chicago and Atlanta for the bottom spot, falling 3.8% in a single month.

Here’s a look at the latest local tiered data, back through 2000:

And here’s a closer look at the recent changes, with the vertical and horizontal axes zoomed in to show just the last year:

All three of LA’s tiers fell in December. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.6%, the middle tier fell 1.0%, and the high tier decreased 0.7%.

In this next chart, I’ve visualized the month to month trends of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Green and above the horizontal axis if they were increasing in the month charted, red and below the axis if they were decreasing. I’ve excluded 2000 through 2004 since they looked largely the same as 2005 (mostly green).

Tiny improvement, better than a year ago, but worse than December 2009, when 5 cities saw an increase.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Four cities hit new post-peak lows in December: Tampa (not shown above) at 47.5% off peak, Atlanta at 36.0% off peak, Las Vegas at 61.4% off peak, and Seattle at 31.9% off peak. The 10-city and 20-city composites both also hit new lows, both at 33.8% off peak.

Methodology: The Case-Shiller index tracks price changes in sets of homes of similar size and style to better determine changes in what people are willing to pay for the same home over time. If data is available from an earlier transaction for the same home, the two sales are paired and treated as a “repeat sale.” Repeat sales that are too far apart, sales between family members, lot splits, remodels, and property type changes (e.g. from single-family to condos) are excluded from the calculations. All remaining repeat sales are totaled together and weighted based on the time between each sale, then the data for the most recent three months is averaged together to create a given month’s index value (i.e. – September’s index represents the average of the data from July through September).

The three price tiers plotted in the charts below simply represent the top, middle, and bottom third of all sales, based on the initial sale price. In other words, if there were 3,000 sales in the three-month period, 1,000 of them would be in the low tier, 1,000 in the middle tier, and 1,000 in the high tier, by definition.

Later this spring, we’ll add the stagers, landscapers and handymen used by sellers to get their home on the market.

Our goal is to ensure our customers get the best service at every step of a deal, by bringing together the best local team and holding that team accountable for the best result.

The Goal: Better Service
Unlike Angie’s List, Open Book is completely free. And unlike Yelp, it’s completely focused on the folks who serve our customers when buying or selling a home. And it’s better ‘policed’ than Yelp, because the reviewers are our customers, and we can vouch that they actually used the service they’re reviewing. It’s not the business owner’s college roommate or best friend’s uncle leaving the review.

There are no kickbacks from anyone we include or recommend. In fact, there’s no revenue model at all for Open Book; not now, nor in the foreseeable future.

The goal is simply better customer service. The best real estate agent in any market is good because of her own skills, but also because of her team, and her ability to hold that team’s feet to the fire when a loan or a listing is on the line.

As Redfin’s online traffic and transaction volume grows, our influence over all the folks who provide real estate services grows too. We want that influence to lead to better performance across the board for our customers.

This means that our focus is quality, not quantity. We don’t want to be the phone book, showing every lender or inspector in town. We want to be a reliable guide to the partners you should actually use, in any market we serve.

Today, people mostly take their agent’s recommendation for an inspector or a lender. But we think customer recommendations are important too, in finding an inspector who will tell you when to walk away from a crumbling house, or a lender who will steer you toward a cheaper loan, even if it pays him less.

This is crucial information, which is why Open Book, while intended for our own customers, is available to everyone browsing our site.

Our Advantage: Redfin-Certified Reviews
No one else could build such a reliable reviews site for real estate vendors.

Because we honcho a transaction the whole way through, hundreds of times a month, we know which inspectors and lenders our customers are using. Redfin’s online Deal Room, for tracking who is supposed to do what to close on time, stores information about thousands of vendors in a big database.

And we already survey every customer, deal or no deal, so it’s easy to ask each customer about his lender, inspector or stager. This means that we can validate every review, to avoid the bogus reviews from vendors’ friends and competitors that plague most review sites.

At some point, we’ll probably solicit reviews from the general public, but we’ll always highlight the reviews that came from actual customers, just because we can verify that the customer did in fact use the vendor she’s reviewing.

Our Investment: Redfin-Certified Partners
As with our brokerage, we aren’t just offering technology; we also offer a human touch. The inspectors, lenders and stagers who get the best reviews qualify for an additional level of certification, as Redfin partners.

Redfin has hired a team of former Redfin agents to interview potential partners, briefing each one on Redfin’s mission and our service expectations. We then monitor the partner’s performance. The ones that make the grade are certified as official Redfin partners. In Open Book, a tiny Redfin ribbon appears beside their profiles.

These are the folks our agents are most likely to recommend to our customers.

Over time, we’ll ask each certified partner to deliver premium service to our customers. This may entail attaching digital photos to an inspection report, or offering to refund the inspection fee if an unexpected repair crops up within 60 days of the closing.

We expect to drive plenty of customers toward our partners; if history is any guide, we’ll have to be careful to ensure no one gets overwhelmed.

And of course we’ll also be careful to strike a balance between ensuring our partners build a profitable business, and giving Redfin customers premium service. Inspectors, stagers and lenders who want to apply to be a certified partner can email us at openbook (at) redfin (dot) com.

Where We’re Starting: Washington DC, the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California
Right now, the reviews are available only in the Bay Area, Washington DC and Southern California.

To find Open Book, just click the “Buying” link at the top right of any page on Redfin.com, and choose “Open Book” from the menu. As we capture more reviews in the coming months, we’ll launch Open Book in more markets, for a wider range of services.

Agent Insights are those short observations that our agents leave on Redfin.com after personally walking through a property. Now these insights are right where they should be: Staring back at you from the right-hand side of the mapped results page, and not behind an “Email me this Insight” button.

When you visit Redfin.com, you’re getting all the information that’s available about the home. Not just the numbers, but a Redfin agent’s no-holds-barred thoughts on the place. And we think that’s pretty cool.

For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For a more detailed explanation of how the Case-Shiller Home Price Index 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. – November data is released in January).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of November:

Nineteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw a decrease in their HPI between October and November (the same as between September and October): Only Phoenix saw an increase, for the second month in a row. This month Chicago bumped Atlanta out of the bottom spot, falling 3.4% in a single month.

Here’s a look at the latest local tiered data, back through 2000:

And here’s a closer look at the recent changes, with the vertical and horizontal axes zoomed in to show just the last year:

All three of LA’s tiers fell in November. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.2%, the middle tier fell 0.3%, and the high tier decreased 1.4%.

In this next chart, I’ve visualized the month to month trends of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Green and above the horizontal axis if they were increasing in the month charted, red and below the axis if they were decreasing. I’ve excluded 2000 through 2004 since they looked largely the same as 2005 (mostly green).

Just five months ago, all twenty cities saw month to month gains. Now just one is not the red.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Four cities hit new post-peak lows in November: Tampa (not shown above) at 47.4% off peak, Atlanta at 34.8% off peak, Las Vegas at 61.1% off peak, and Seattle at 31.0% off peak.

Methodology: The Case-Shiller index tracks price changes in sets of homes of similar size and style to better determine changes in what people are willing to pay for the same home over time. If data is available from an earlier transaction for the same home, the two sales are paired and treated as a “repeat sale.” Repeat sales that are too far apart, sales between family members, lot splits, remodels, and property type changes (e.g. from single-family to condos) are excluded from the calculations. All remaining repeat sales are totaled together and weighted based on the time between each sale, then the data for the most recent three months is averaged together to create a given month’s index value (i.e. – September’s index represents the average of the data from July through September).

The three price tiers plotted in the charts below simply represent the top, middle, and bottom third of all sales, based on the initial sale price. In other words, if there were 3,000 sales in the three-month period, 1,000 of them would be in the low tier, 1,000 in the middle tier, and 1,000 in the high tier, by definition.

For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For a more detailed explanation of how the Case-Shiller Home Price Index 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. – October data is released in December).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of October:

Nineteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw a decrease in their HPI between September and October (vs. eighteen from August to September): Only Phoenix saw an increase. Wait, Phoenix? Yup, Phoenix. Atlanta fell the most in October (again), falling a whopping 5.0% in a single month.

Here’s a look at the latest local tiered data, back through 2000:

And here’s a closer look at the recent changes, with the vertical and horizontal axes zoomed in to show just the last year:

All three of LA’s tiers fell in October, with the high tier taking the biggest hit. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.8%, the middle tier fell 0.9%, and the high tier decreased 1.5%.

In this next chart, I’ve visualized the month to month trends of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Green and above the horizontal axis if they were increasing in the month charted, red and below the axis if they were decreasing. I’ve excluded 2000 through 2004 since they looked largely the same as 2005 (mostly green).

Just four months ago, all twenty cities saw month to month gains. Now just one is not the red.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Two cities hit new post-peak lows in October: Atlanta at 33.2% off peak and Las Vegas at 60.7% off peak.

Methodology: The Case-Shiller index tracks price changes in sets of homes of similar size and style to better determine changes in what people are willing to pay for the same home over time. If data is available from an earlier transaction for the same home, the two sales are paired and treated as a “repeat sale.” Repeat sales that are too far apart, sales between family members, lot splits, remodels, and property type changes (e.g. from single-family to condos) are excluded from the calculations. All remaining repeat sales are totaled together and weighted based on the time between each sale, then the data for the most recent three months is averaged together to create a given month’s index value (i.e. – September’s index represents the average of the data from July through September).

The three price tiers plotted in the charts below simply represent the top, middle, and bottom third of all sales, based on the initial sale price. In other words, if there were 3,000 sales in the three-month period, 1,000 of them would be in the low tier, 1,000 in the middle tier, and 1,000 in the high tier, by definition.

For the full source data behind this post, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website. For a more detailed explanation of how the Case-Shiller Home Price Index 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. – September data is released in November).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of September:

Seventeen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw a decrease in their HPI between August and September (vs. eleven from July to August): Only Washington DC, New York, and Portland rose. Atlanta fell the most in September, falling a whopping 5.9% in a single month.

Here’s a look at the latest local tiered data, back through 2000:

And here’s a closer look at the recent changes, with the vertical and horizontal axes zoomed in to show just the last year:

All three of LA’s tiers fell in September, with the high tier losing the most ground. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.4%, the middle tier fell 0.4%, and the high tier decreased 1.1%.

In this next chart, I’ve visualized the month to month trends of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Green and above the horizontal axis if they were increasing in the month charted, red and below the axis if they were decreasing. I’ve excluded 2000 through 2004 since they looked largely the same as 2005 (mostly green).

Just three months ago, all twenty cities saw month to month gains. Now only three have avoided falling into the red.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Three cities hit new post-peak lows in September: Phoenix at 55.9% off peak, Atlanta at 29.7% off peak, and Las Vegas at a mind-blowing 60.0% off peak.

Methodology: The Case-Shiller index tracks price changes in sets of homes of similar size and style to better determine changes in what people are willing to pay for the same home over time. If data is available from an earlier transaction for the same home, the two sales are paired and treated as a “repeat sale.” Repeat sales that are too far apart, sales between family members, lot splits, remodels, and property type changes (e.g. from single-family to condos) are excluded from the calculations. All remaining repeat sales are totaled together and weighted based on the time between each sale, then the data for the most recent three months is averaged together to create a given month’s index value (i.e. – September’s index represents the average of the data from July through September).

The three price tiers plotted in the charts below simply represent the top, middle, and bottom third of all sales, based on the initial sale price. In other words, if there were 3,000 sales in the three-month period, 1,000 of them would be in the low tier, 1,000 in the middle tier, and 1,000 in the high tier, by definition.