Berkeley Sales/List Price Ratio by Days On The MLS

I love crunching numbers... and reading maps... and finding correlations and relationships.

So when someone asked me about the relationship between sales price and days on the MLS, I thought about it for a bit, and quickly came up with the following graphs.


Top graph - 2007 Berkeley Single Family Home Sales. Though I can graph the sales prices as a function of days on the MLS (DMLS) I decided to look at the Sales Price/Original Listing Price ratio first.. since that gives an excellent feel for how "hot" or "cool" the market is. When most homes sell quickly for more than asking price, it's a hot market.

And 2007 was a hot Berkeley real estate market!

The median (half more, half less) days on the market was 15.

But that's more a function of how Berkeley homes are sold... we usually don't look at offers until a home has been on the market for 7-10 days (sometimes after two open houses)... and so the typical cycle time is 7-14 days.

And the median Sales Price/Original List Price ratio? About 101%.

Note though, that most of the homes which sold within 21 days on the market sold for more than the asking price. Almost all the homes which took 6o days or more to sell sold for less (often much less) than the original asking price.


And what of 2008 Year To Date (YTD?) Not a lot of data yet, but that's to be expected since not many homes sell in December or January.. because not a lot of homes were on the market that time.

There were about 47 closings in 2007 compared to about 38 closings the same time period of 2008... though that is more a function of few homes on market this year. Looks to me that there's a similar distribution for 2008, though some homes are taking longer to sell, and overbids somewhat fewer.


What does this all mean?

I think Berkeley will have a strong local real estate market... while other "micro" real estate markets around the SF Bay Area and the US might be much slower.

If you're selling, call us right away so we can get your home on the market as soon as possible.

And if you're buying... unless a home is overpriced or has been on the market awhile, the home you're interested in will probably sell for more than asking price if it sells within 21 days on the market!

There is a direct correlation between how many buyers offer on it, and what it sells for. Let us know if you'd like more information.

The Data: East Bay Regional Data, which represents homes sold through the MLS and not private home sales. All number crunching done by Ira Serkes.. who, as they say, has a (actually two) degrees in Science! Information deemed to be correct but not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary.

B.S.Ch.E Cooper Union (1970, M.S.Ch.E UMass Amherst 1974

Here are the graphs closer together to make them easier to compare with each other.

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Email serkes@berkeleyhomes.com or call 510-526-6668 for more information.

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