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 If it’s withdrawn and re-listed, it resets to zero.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.)

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.

While cruising up the windward side of the island of Oahu to take some property photos for an asset management company, I was struck by what a sparkling winter day it was…gentle offshore breezes, small waves lapping at the shore, you know…postcard stuff. It occurred to me that this might be just the thing for someone just kicking the ice off the mittens after shoveling snow off the driveway for the third time in as many days (my father mentioned that there was 1/2″ of snow on the part of the driveway he started with before he finished snowblowing the REST of the driveway…yuck).

Being in the Laie area, I thought a couple peaceful minutes on the shore might be a nice thing…so here they are.

Laie Point #1 (the north side)

Laie Point #2 (the south side)

From our household, the rest of the gang wants to wish everyone a safe, peaceful, prosperous and blessing-filled 2010.

 Herbie takes this sort of thing very seriously, while on the other hand…

Hina thinks it’s hysterical.

Remember to laugh a little every day!

We don’t typically go very far on New Year’s Eve; our cul-de-sac neighborhood always gathers for food and drink and the requisite fireworks display and we’re often dozing off long before midnight. This year, however, we’re joining friends at a fundraising event that sounds like it’ll be a hoot. Marine Corps Base Hawaii, just down the road (this week, you go past the President’s vacation house and take a right…) is hosting a combination standup comedy/dancing/silent auction/live auction extravaganza and we’re excited to be attending. Should be a lot of laughs and chances are we WILL stay up until the wee hours.

Of course, the important thing is that the evening will help support the Aloha Detachment of the Marine Corps League. This nationwide organization has created programs that focus on Marines wounded in battle and their families, scholarship programs, veterans programs, the Boy Scouts of America, Toys For Tots and a long list of others. Their motto, “Once a Marine, Always a Marine” rings loudly here in Kailua, where the Marine Corps base is an essential and vital part of our community.

The Aloha Detachment was recently re-chartered and this evening’s excitement will help build a scholarship fund for deserving high school seniors enrolled in Navy or Marine Corps JROTC programs as well as children of active duty servicemembers stationed here on the windward side of Oahu. As a veteran (and the husband of a Navy Captain’s daughter), I’m tickled to be going and look forward to some serious yucks.

Now nearing completion, Allure Waikiki is taking shape on Kalakaua Avenue. We’ve added a new page to our site with the latest information and will be updating it often as photos and details become available. We’ve currently uploaded all of the floor plan and specification info, so take a moment to take a look.

If this project interests you, we’d be happy to introduce you to this 35-story high rise and assist you through the purchasing process. Give us a call or send an email and we’ll get you up to speed!

Regular readers will notice a little more focus on Koolani, a Honolulu high-rise where our team spends a lot of time and part of our extended real estate family. One reason for this is the inclusion of links the blog in the new Koolani Facebook Group. Rather than clog the social network with real estate data, the plan is to make these entries available as links for anyone who’d like to look.

Soooo…how WAS 2009? I mentioned the number of sales in a recent post, but wanted to put some more data out there for digestion and comparison…so here we go:

Number of resales:
27 (2 less than 2008, 13 less than 2007)

Average sale price:
$871,648

Average sale price per square foot:
$671

Average days on market:
113 (interesting that this is actually a week shorter than 2007 but a month and a half LONGER than 2008)

Just some numbers to compare to YOUR property to see where you may stack up. Disclaimer: this comes from the MLS system and is only as accurate as what was entered.

Sorry…couldn’t resist…

“Why yes, there IS an opening on her calendar…I’ll pencil you in…”

Like a little mushroom cloud, it grew from a single point of <kaboom> into a big pile of radiation and destruction…

Got this in an email yesterday, part of a message that went on for several pages that had lots of exclamation points and the like:

“Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won’t be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act. H.R. 2454, the “Cap and Trade” bill passed by the House of Representatives, of also passed by the Senate, will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced.”

Ahem…

No, you won’t and no it won’t.

The bill requires nothing of the sort, rather it provides funding for states to offer homeowners incentives to voluntarily upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes. There are some conditions, as you might expect (verification of improvements, etc.), but there are no requirements.

The reason I bring this up is that this is just ONE of the zillion not-so-accurate messages I constantly receive being forward and forwarded and forwarded and BELIEVED by people. It makes me cringe to think that the era of information is so full of misinformation. In the case of the message above, the chain of folks it had been to was visible and very long…which means that 1) everyone who forwarded it thought it was true and 2) none of them had actually read the bill to see what it really said.

Taking the time to do the research is a good thing. (Or you could believe that it’s a tossup…we’ll either all be socialists ruled by Kenya or the alien colony on the moon will invade, whichever comes first.)