Home Prices Dip Slightly from August to September, Still Up 5% from 2011 in Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker

SEATTLE, Oct. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology-powered real estate broker Redfin (www.redfin.com) today released its Real-Time Home Price Tracker for September 2012, showing an annual price gain of 5 percent across 19 major U.S. markets. From August to September, prices declined just 0.8% percent, which is a smaller decline than is typical at this time of year. The report also showed:

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• Inventory still low: The number of homes for sale declined 29.3% from September 2011 to September 2012, and by 4.3% since August.
• Homes selling quickly: The percentage of listings that sold within 14 days of their debut held steady in September at 27%.
• *Home sales up year-over-year, down since August:* Home sales increased 4% from last year, and fell 17% since August—a typical seasonal decline.

"September is usually the month that real estate goes on sale, like Christmas toys in January," said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. "Whatever didn't sell in the summer gets marked down for a September closing. This September, we saw only a modest decline in prices, with inventory still dropping and demand fairly steady. In the most volatile markets, including Southern California, Phoenix and Las Vegas, we continued to see big price gains."

This report is the earliest monthly analysis of home prices, sales and inventory across 19 U.S. markets, published weeks before any other index, based on the local databases used directly by Realtors to list properties and record sales. Click here to read the complete Redfin Real-Time Home Price Tracker.

Market-Specific Highlights and Lowlights:

Home Prices

• Fifteen of the 19 markets studied had higher prices than a year earlier.
• Phoenix showed the highest gain at 30% year-over-year.
• Philadelphia suffered the most, down 3% since September 2011.

Inventory

• The top seven markets with the largest year-over-year drop in inventory were all in California: Sacramento (-66.4%), Ventura (64.8%), Inland Empire (58.8%), San Francisco (-57.6%), San Jose (-55.7%), Los Angeles (-55.3%) San Diego (-53.5%).
• The market with the smallest drop year-over-year drop in inventory was Chicago with inventory 5.1% lower than last year.

Selling Velocity

• The top six fastest-selling markets (% of homes selling in two weeks or less) are all in California: San Jose (55.9%), Ventura (51.7%), San Francisco (46.8%), Los Angeles (41.4%), San Diego (40.9%) and Inland Empire (40.6%).
• The slowest-selling market is Boston, with only 3.7% of home selling in 14 days or less.

About the Real-Time Home Price Tracker
As a broker with access to dozens of Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) used by real estate agents to list properties and record sales, Redfin gets data within minutes of a sale, pending sale or listing activation, well before any government, media or analytics organization. Using MLS fields, Redfin is able to distinguish houses from condominiums and townhouses, which often sell for less money. To validate the accuracy of the data and to account for sales not handled by a real estate agent, Redfin compares MLS data with county records as they become available, using sophisticated algorithms to identify and resolve disparities about square footage or price for each address. Data at the local and neighborhood level are available in a spreadsheet, and the report methodology is available as an Adobe document.

About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate broker that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded and run by technologists, Redfin has a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not sales-people, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions. Redfin's online tools feature all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don't pay brokers a commission. The company serves 19 U.S. markets, and has closed more than $5 billion in home sales. Follow us on blog.redfin.com or our Twitter feed @redfin.

SOURCE Redfin Corporation