You would have seen this today if Gustav hadn't appeared and screwed things up.

Have a safe holiday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indice report for June 2008 was released this week. It "shows continued broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, a trend that prevailed throughout 2007 and has continued through the first half of 2008."
The data show that the Washington, DC MSA is still suffering home price declines [see the charts below]. Effectively, the DC area's home price index has fallen to slightly below that of September 2004. In line with the national data, our area's rate of decline slowed in June.
The charts below reflect home price data for the Washington, DC MSA.
BTW, I know all the arguments about whether this data is truly applicable to DC, especially since it omits condos. It is what it is.
Now that I've completed most of my travel for the month [save for New Orleans, Gustav willing] and fixed a few infrastructure issues, I've [finally] finished my analysis of full value residential sales the District recorded in April 2008. It wasn't a good month - huge declines in the number of units sold and dollar volume.
Expensive homes continue to skew the data:
All data have been uploaded for viewing on DCHomePrices.com and DCCondoPrices.com.
State of the Market
In April 2008 the District recorded 583 residential sales. In general, the average price fell 3.55% and the median price fell 6.64%. More tellingly, unit sales declined 20.14% while dollar volume fell 22.97%. However, results for the condo market looked especially dire: unit sales down 28.23% YoY and dollar volume down a whopping 38.08%. Although not as bad, single family home sales didn't escape the month unscathed. While average prices rose a slight 1.94%, the median price fell 10.94%, the number of homes sold fell 9.29%, and the dollar volume declined 7.54%.
Fell, down, lowered, declined. I need a thesaurus.
Wards 6 and 7 had higher sales volume; Wards 7 and 8 had positive growth in median prices; and Wards 3-6 had declines in average sales price. Ward 8 had the steepest drop in sales volume, dropping almost 71%. Strikingly, condo sales dominated 5 of the 8 wards.
Condo sales ruled sales in Wards 1 and 2 - no other word is applicable. In Ward 1, 67.82% of sales were condos; Ward 2, 85.09%. Ward 2 accounted for the most condo sales in the District, 32.3%, followed by Ward 6 at 23%.
Distribution of Sales
The chart below shows the distribution of April's recorded sales by sales price.
Condos
The number of condos sold [existing and new] fell 28.23% YoY. Average and median prices were much lower, down 13.73% and 3.88%. Among those condos that have sold:
Single Family Homes
Overall demand for single family housing is down 9.29%, as measured in unit sales. Average prices were up a meager 1.94% and median prices were down 10.33%. Semi-detached homes had a great month in terms of units sold and dollar volume.
Purchase the Data
For $5.00, you can purchase a listing of the April home and condo sales recorded in the District discussed in this post. Information in the listing includes [see below]:
Note: Data may not be available for all properties. My analysis is dependent upon the completeness and fidelity of the District's appraisal data.
April 2008 Sales Listings | ![]() |
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Detailed Data
Aggregate by Zip Code
April 2008 average and median sales prices and unit volume by zip code.
Category by Zip Code
Category by Ward
Disclaimer:
Summer's almost over and I've finally been able to process and upload the District's sales data for April 2008. May's data is still not completely available; maybe by Halloween. It can be viewed on DCHomePrices.com and DCCondoPrices.com. Analysis forthcoming, after we return from our weekend trip to Kansas City.
One other item to note: I've spent a lot of time over the past few days improving my CAMA database, which is the database of the physical attributes of each property in the District. That database allows me, among other things, to calculate each sale's price/square foot. More importantly, the changes I've implemented will enable me to provide current information; no more disclaimer about 6-12 month delays in data availability.
P.S. For those who've asked, the partner's fine, it's benign!
MRIS has released its data for signed sales contracts for existing home sales in July 2008. Compared to July 2007, fewer units sold, there was lower dollar volume, and average prices for single family homes were higher while those for condos fell. Forty three of the units sold, 8.5%, were valued at more than $1MM [recall my earlier comments on the higher end skewing the numbers].
Key YoY data points:
What I'm seeing in the data [without adjustments for the high end] is:
2008 Trends
Average Sales Price
Change in Sales Price
Unit Sales Volume
Detailed Data
Average Sales Price
Dollar Volume
Transaction Volume
I'm trying something new and would appreciate your feedback. I've analyzed quite a few condo buildings in the area over the past 2 years. Unfortunately, I rarely update a condo's profile once it's been posted and I can guarantee you there's some old, creaky data out there. To "fix" that problem, I'm researching whether a wiki would help.
The idea is that I'll put all the condo analyses on the wiki and those who have more current information - and no agenda - can update or improve the entries.
So I've created a wiki, DCHousingPrices, and prepopulated it with a few postings. It's configured to accept anonymous users. Check it out. I'd appreciate feedback on whether this is worthwhile and if there are issues with the platform provider I've selected. Again, no agendas and no puffery.
I'm still working on April's sales data, but travel and my partner's hospital stay have delayed my progress.