Shadow Inventory Watch

Year over year median sold prices for condos in Playa Vista have increased by about 9% from October 2015-October 2016 per Core Logic published statistics. This would indicate to an outside observer that it is still a seller’s market and housing is strong.

In analyzing data to look for future market trends, like I often do, I found something interesting. One leading indicator of a future slowdown could be MLS listings that were canceled, expired, or withdrawn compared to a similar period a year ago. In looking at this data in Playa Vista, excluding new construction, there were 24 separate properties with these statuses in the past 6 months. Compared to the exact same six month period in 2015, there were 6. While a somewhat small sample size, this is an alarming 300% increase. This signals to me that there are a lot of sellers who have tested the market recently and their properties have not sold, but may try again when they are more motivated or realistic.

It’s possible that some of these homes may have ultimately sold off the market or a seller may have removed it from the market for reasons other than not selling due to being overpriced. However, this is a negative market signal in that buyers are not biting on a large number of aggressively-priced properties and there’s a good chance many of these will come back eventually, possibly at more realistic prices, increasing supply. We will continue to monitor this trend at Playa Vista Experts.

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