The Blog at Christies by the Sea

A reminder to all of you professionals out there who work at a desk…just ’cause you put a plant in the way, it doesn’t mean the cat won’t wiggle in to his favorite spot to catch a few z’s. Case in point:

Rock on, Herbie…

A stroll through a luxury high rise condominium unit in Honolulu. Koolani #2304 is located at 1177 Queen Street in the Kakaako area, close to shopping and restaurants and across the street from Ala Moana Beach Park. Listed at $740,00, details can be found HERE.

Since it’s going to continue to come up, might as well clear the air…in a mailer and blog post some accusatory remarks were made that included chastising an Association of Apartment Owners for supplying the “Queen of Koolani” with a key fob that allows access to all of the building’s floors and amenities.

Just for the record, that was a complete fabrication on the writer’s part. There’s no such key. End of story.

Moving on…

A recent visit from my sister and her family included the sipping of several rum-based tropical drinks (which my sister particularly enjoyed). It seems that she’s been trying to reproduce that experience in the frozen New England wasteland…’cause I got this in an email:

It’s taken me lots of mixing but I’ve finally perfected the best blue-tarp Vermont Group Mai Tai.  It’ll give Buzz’s a run for it’s money, fer sher….

***Try to stick with ALL bottom shelf alcohol….platic bottles if you can find them. And don’t spend more than $9.60 per liter (get ‘em while they’re on sale!)

Mix the following in a clean plastic tub…

1 jelly jar dark rum (if the bottle contains the words “island” or “jamacan” (no “i”) that’s best)

2 jelly jars clear rum (”superior silver” does the job)

2 jelly jars orange curacau (find it between “pucker” and “fire water” on store shelf. I had to ask)

1/2 jelly jar lime juice from a plastic lime at the grocery store

2 jelly jars lite cran-raspberry juice (can substitute pineapple juice strained from a can of crushed pineapple but it’s not the same and it leaves schmeg in the bottom of your cup)

4 red plastic cups filled with FRESH ice - not the old freezer-burned leftovers from super bowl.

Pour into cups & stir with finger. Slurp loudly.

After acknowledging that I watched a historic hockey game yesterday (it…was…epic…), I wanted to pass on a little nugget I stumbled upon while reading some of the reaction to Canada’s victory. I rarely link to other writers, but this is worth making an exception. With all credit to Rick Reilly and ESPN, taking none for myself:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4927674

Proud to be a Vermonter, I am…

We just listed a four-plex in downtown Honolulu, steps from Kapiolani Boulevard and very close to…well…everything. Check it out HERE.

A commercial popped on the television the other day showing some hot new video game with dragons and flames and explosions and a long list of other stuff aimed at a demographic substantially younger than me…so I really didn’t pay attention. However, I’m always entertained by the disclaimers that flash by in fine print so, when I saw one, I backed up to see what it said.

Remember…this is an ad consisting entirely of computer graphics exploding across the screen. And the fine print said:

“Images not representative of actual product.”

Two questions. First, are you serious? You really said, “This is really cool, but our product doesn’t look like this.”? Second, you can DO that? The Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commissions both allow you to show “images not representative” as long as you say so in fine print? As long as the little words are true, the big pictures can be a lie?

Wow. Think of the possibilities…let’s put pictures of a luxury high rise in a listing for a tear-down and just say in the remarks, “Images not representative of actual product.” How do you think THAT would go over? And what about the photos needed on an online dating site? Uh oh…

Amazing.

Some things are just ridiculous. A headline in today’s paper declares “Isle Foreclosure Rate 11th Worst in the Nation”.

Really? Let’s see the data. The article starts out with numbers on a comparative scale with other major cities and states: “Real estate research firm RealtyTrac said there were 1,302 foreclosure filings statewide last month. That was up nearly fourfold from 337 in the same month last year, but was down from 1,534 in December.”

Wow, that’s a big change. Disaster is among us…ummm…where did you actually GET those numbers, by the way? Here’s where the ridiculous part comes in. Sprinkled throughout the article are the following statements:

“RealtyTrac’s data can include filings on the same property counted in different months…”

“RealtyTrac may not be able to count all default notices since some aren’t filed publicly…”

“Another caveat to RealtyTrac’s data is that it doesn’t exclude commercial property, such as condominium-hotel units and time-shares.”

So what you’re telling us is that this article was written based on data that is potentially incorrect in at least three different ways? And you’re comparing a market with commercial, condotel and time share properties to markets without these property types?

Let me guess…if a time share is foreclosed on that means that all the owners get counted as “one” regardless of the number of actual units, doesn’t it? I bet the same is true of a fractional property (which would multiply the number by up to six).

How about reporting on real information instead of incomplete and incorrect information? That would certainly be a little less ridiculous.

Back in the saddle after a little break from the blog and I’ll apologize ahead of time for the dry content, but I’ve been sifting through sales data and thought this to be important. You see, all we have for our decision-making is data. Sure, there are photos and open houses and that sort of thing, but at the end of the day it’s the data that drives real estate transactions.

So…what ABOUT the data? Our local MLS system allows us to quickly and easily generate a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) and send it via email to a potential buyer interested in a purchase or an owner investigating pricing. However, the definition of the data isn’t transparent and therein lies my issue. Using the Koolani building here in Honolulu (which I’m very familiar with), I generated a CMA for the last 6 months of sales. In a nutshell, the summary says:

- Average Days on Market: 93
- Average Listing Price: $855,338
- Average Sale Price: $816,269
- Percentage of Listing to Sale Price: 95%

At first glance, it seems that a “typical” sale will take about three months and the seller will receive about 95% of their list price. But wait…let’s take another look. It’s about the definitions:

- Sale Price is straightforward and the only thing that isn’t a potential variable.
- Listing Price is the most RECENT list price, the one that was in place when the sale was made.
- Days on Market (DOM) is where things get messy. You see, if the listing is allowed to expire and then put immediately back on the market, the DOM resets to zero. If it goes into contract, the days stop counting, even though the listing is still active. If it’s withdrawn and re-listed, it resets to zero. If it’s placed in pending status…well, you get the picture.

So, let’s take another peek at our sales data using the original list price and the original listing date as starting points and the sale date being the end of the DOM counter:

- Average Days on Market: 287
- Average Listing Price: $947,154
- Average Sale Price: $816,269
- Percentage of Listing to Sale Price: 86%

Quite a difference, isn’t it? The reality is that a typical listing is on the market for 9 months and was initially priced 14% above the eventual sale price. Expectations that are set by the standard CMA are sure to be disappointing, don’t you think?

So what to do…? I think that a CMA needs to accompanied by the whole story, including an explanation of what the numbers really mean. In addition, different slices of the data should be manually performed to ensure that the client is getting the most complete data set available.

Because, in the end, the data is all we have.

(A side note…the current Koolani listings show an average DOM of 112 in the CMA…the real number? 294.)

We were able to bring the FlipVideo on a tour of one of the units at Allure Waikiki, so we took some portions of the footage and added a little music for your enjoyment. The building is scheduled to be completed this spring and is taking shape very nicely.

Check out our Allure Waikiki page for photos, floor plans and information.