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 San Diego County 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 San Diego’s tiers fell in January. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.2%, the middle tier fell 1.0%, and the high tier decreased 1.6%.

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.

Another month, another chapter in the low inventory story in San Diego. A well-priced home barely has a chance to say hello to the market before a big “pending” banner goes over the picture on Redfin’s website.

Our agents here in San Diego have noticed that a lot of the bidding wars are coming from homes that are intentionally priced below their market value to spark that competition. So a home that the seller expects to fetch $500,000 might be priced at $475,000.

I’m telling my clients to be ready to play that game as well when deciding the most they’re willing to pay for a home. If you’re able to pay $500,000, try putting your cap at $475,000, since there’s a good chance you’ll be coming up against other offers. In this market of low inventory, it could be a while before another home comes along that you like as much. Sellers are intentionally pricing low, so savvy buyers are finding success by searching low.

You can download the full data set for the entire San Diego area here, but here are the big stories for the City of San Diego:

The drop in inventory gets steeper

Every time we think we’ve hit rock bottom on supply, the market picks up a shovel and starts to dig. With single-family, condos and townhomes combined, the number of homes on the market was 2,900 in March, down 16.7% since February and 49.9% from the previous March.

That’s 2.1 months of supply (the lowest in more than a year), where a balanced market is 5-6 months. Sellers, this is your time!

A couple of other indictors of the seller’s market here are the high number of pending sales, and the low number of homes taken off the market without selling. Both send a clear message: Sellers have the power in San Diego.

Single-family home prices drop, condos jump

Prices were a mixed bag in March, with single-family homes down, and condos/townhomes up month over month. The median single-family home in San Diego sold for $380,000 in March, down 2.3% since February, and down 7.3% from March of last year. Median price for condos was up 14.1% from February, but still down 2.5% from last year. Townhomes had a great month at $300,000 median sale price, up 21% month over month and breaking even year over year.

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.

But let’s take a look at what’s driving that bid-happy behavior…

Inventory Still Freefalling in San Diego

San Diego took another inventory hit in February, down 13.7% since January, and down 45.1% from February 2011. A big portion of the decline was in condos, where the number of condos on the market dropped by 55.4% year over year to 875. It was the first time in the past year that the number of condos on the market was less than 1,000.

Months of supply, an industry term for the time it would take to sell through the current supply of homes on the market, given the current rate of sales, was 2.7 months, a 12-month low for San Diego. In a market balance between buyers and sellers, you’d expect to see 5-6 months, so it’s definitely still a seller’s market here.

Where’s the Inventory?

Some cities in San Diego County are feeling the inventory shortage a lot harder than others. Here’s a list of all the cities in the county with 100 or more homes for sale, sorted by the year over year declines they’ve experienced.

Prices Recovering from Seasonal Lows

The median price of a single-family home in San Diego was up 4.1% month over month and 2.7% year over year, at $385,000. That’s the highest it’s been since October, when the median price was $390,000. Condo prices, however, reached a 12-month low of $184,000.

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 San Diego County 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 San Diego’s tiers fell in December. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.5%, the middle tier fell 0.3%, and the high tier decreased 1.3%.

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.

By Anna Nevares, Redfin San Diego Area Manager

With the number of homes on the market continuing a steady, month-over-month downward trend, it’s no surprise that buyers are willing to resort to tactics they would have scoffed at just a few months ago.

One tactic is accepting a back-up position and hoping the first deal falls through so they can snap up the home without having to re-negotiate. In years (and even months) past, buyers would rather wait for the property to come back available rather than committing into a back-up position. That said, it’s not yet a traditional seller’s market. Although there many buyers out there, they aren’t willing to pay premium prices when trends are continuing down. So sellers, price it right. Buyers, make a competitive offer, and know that it might take several offers before one sticks.

Inventory slide continues

The story in San Diego in January was all about buyers having less to choose from. The number of single-family homes in San Diego fell 8.2% from December and 36.8% from January last year, to 1,987.

Given the pace of sales and the number of homes on the market, it would take 3.4 months to sell through the current inventory, a term known in the industry as “months of supply.” In a market balanced between buyers and sellers, we’d expect to see 5-6 months of supply, so this represents a slight advantage for sellers in San Diego, but a more balanced market than December’s 12-month low in months of supply.

Sales drop nearly 28% in January

We’ve all heard that real estate is seasonal, and one look at the chart of the number of home sales reinforces that. There were 520 sales in San Diego, representing a sharp decrease of 27.5% since December 2011, but up 9.2% since January 2011. This is largely due to the fact that not many people are out looking for homes during the holiday season, and so there are less people ready to buy early in the year.

San Diego Median Sale Price Down Slightly for the Month, Year

The median sale price for a single-family home in San Diego was $370,000, down 0.5% from December 2011 and down 2.5% year over year from January 2011. The per-square-foot price was also down 2.9% month over month, to $234, and down 4.5% year over year.

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 San Diego County 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:

San Diego’s middle and high tiers fell in November, while the low tier rose slightly. Month to month, the low tier was up 0.4%, the middle tier fell 1.7%, and the high tier decreased 0.4%.

Also of note: Rich Toscano (San Diego’s famous local housing bubble blogger) bought a house! For real!

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 San Diego County 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 San Diego’s tiers fell in October, with the middle and low tiers tying for the biggest hit. Month to month, the low tier was down 0.6%, the middle tier fell 0.6%, and the high tier decreased 0.2%.

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.

Customers Love the Personal Service
We keep hearing how important it is to have an agent that’s 100% on your side, working for your best interest and not for a commission. It’s how Redfin has always done business, and that’s not changing. With our new service in San Diego, you get that same level of service, using tools that keep you in the loop at every step. But now, your agent can really get to know you personally and determine your needs along the way.

A 15-50% Refund
Our fee for selling a home is still 1.5% of the home price. But our refund for home-buyers will now depend on the list price of the home, so you’ll know up front exactly how much you’ll get back. For a $500,000 home in San Diego, the typical refund would be $4,311. Our website has all the details on the new commission refund. The estimated refund, based on the list price, will always be displayed on the listing page in the upper-right corner.

Since there is no longer a minimum with our new pricing plan in San Diego, your refund will actually be bigger on homes with list prices $287,000 and under, and more people will get a refund.

Existing Customers Are Eligible for Whichever Refund is More
If you’ve already contacted us to tour a home, talk to an agent or write an offer, you’ll receive the refund option that’s highest. If you close on a home by Feb. 29, 2012, we’ll either honor the old refund pricing, or give you the new pricing, depending on which gives you more money back.

This new level of service is limited to a few cities now, but it looks like it’s catching on. Turns out people love it when you combine full-service agents who aren’t paid on commission with access to the best information available about the homes and the agents.

A Redfin agent can show you how the whole process works, and give you insight on how the housing market is doing in your area, even down to the neighborhood level. Check out the reviews of our San Diego-area agents and find the right agent for you.