Shadow Hills Real Estate Year In Review 2010

"Shadow Hills breaks resale records for home sales in 2010."

A record $ 45,690,244 Shadow Hills homes successfully sold, that is the most homes sold ever in Shadow Hills in one year.

One hundred forty five, yes 145 homes sold, that is the most ever. Now that is great news for Del Web Shadow Hills homeowners and especially for you home sellers, right?    

Well...there are homes that sell, and homes that do not sell, and there are many more Shadow Hills homes that do not sell, than homes that sell. 

The story behind those record braking sales is the important one, especially if you are concerned about values, or more importantly planning to sell. And that is what we are going to examine in this review of the resale home market in Shadow Hills in the year 2010. You just learned that a record was broken for successful sales, but what about all those others, well that is the back end of that same story, and the one we are about to tell you. 

A Record $ 43, 314,229 of Shadow Hills homes or 114 properties Failed to Sell, and were taken off the market in 2010.

A Record  $ 40, 186,515 surplus inventory or 111 properties remained on the market at the end of December 2010.

So that means bottom line there were a total of 370 properties for sale, yet only 145 or 39% successfully sold in 2010. Or put another way the Failure Rate in 2010 stood at nearly 61%, not good for sellers, and especially not good for home values.

Now lets take a look at a chart that has a recap of historic home values going back as far a 2004.

If you are one of the 350 owners who purchased between 2004-2008, and you compare the Average Sold Price in the year you purchased (or the Price Per Sq. Foot) with what homes are selling for in 2010, you could experience a real panic attack. But don't panic, because unless you understand the statistics behind those numbers you will cause yourself undue worry and concern.

Now once again those same numbers and information.

"Shadow Hills breaks resale records for home sales in 2010."

A record $ 45,690,244 Shadow Hills homes successfully sold, that is the most homes sold ever in Shadow Hills in one year. 

The average home in Shadow Hills in 2010 sold for $ 163 a Square Foot. OUCH !!!! That number has to make every homeowner cringe, big time. Suppose you were planning to sell today, multiply your homes square footage times $ 163, bet it is a lot less than you paid, right? Now multiply your homes square foot times $ 200, ok starting to feel better. Now multiply times $ 230 a square foot, ok now we are starting to feel like 2006 again. (not only is that possible but we assure that you can do even better, you just have to know what you are doing)

If it is not clear to you by now we urge you to use caution when you review information,  statistics and data, especially use caution when someone mentions the word "comps". This market is far to complex to rely on only a single factor, or small slice or subset of data, in order to get the full picture, you must evaluate all of the data.

In order to truly, accurately, truthfully establish VALUE you must take various pieces of Historical sales data, and evaluate it. That means the entire set of Reports and data, that includes historical square foot costs, sales patterns, expired listings records, Failure Rate Analysis, Days on the Market Trends, Shadow Hills resale trends versus National Values, etc, not just successful sales numbers. How else are you going to be able to draw proper and accurate conclusions with regard to current value.

Until data is arrange in an intelligent order that people can actually use it is nothing more than information. And often information that can be misleading.

Now back to our Dollars Per Square Foot discussion, which should open your eyes when it comes to current market value.

One of the most important pieces of data is Historical Square Foot selling prices. Take a look at the following graph Historical Data on Square Foot trends. First review the Legend at the bottom, and look at the "green bars" for each selling year starting in 2004. As you can see for example in the year 2004, every home, yes every home, sold for more than $ 200 per square foot, while in 2010 only 14% sold for more than $ 200 a square foot.

So bottom line, not everyone will succeed in getting $ 200 or more per square foot, but 14 % of sellers will. And to get that you must be a smart seller who understands the ins and outs of selling in Shadow Hills, and that requires extensive knowledge only gained through analysis.

Our goal at Sterling Real Estate is to put information together with meaningful data into a format that you can actually make use of, with the greatest degree of confidence.

What you will find below is an in-depth look at just what happened last year, property by property, that means each and every property, sale by sale, category by category, expired listings, days on the market, square foot, we evaluate it all for you in easy to use charts and tables. This is for everyone who wants to understand just what it is that is shaping the current market. And how those events could affect residents of Del Web Shadow Hills thinking of selling in the short and near term.

If you would rather get a "quick look see for your property" simply scroll down to the various Tables that have data conveniently arranged by Square Foot. That way you can scan down each table to the "square foot" that matches your own home. In most tables the Square Foot Column will be the very last on the Table, and be sorted from smallest to largest. While the Graphs are more in depth in nature they are all easy to comprehend as long as you refer to the "legends" at the bottom of each graph.

So let us begin with the Big Picture, once again, Historical Values 2004 to 2010.

The most striking statistic that comes from the above table is the sheer volume of property for sale in 2010 versus the same period in 2009. With a 45% increase in the amount of property for sale in 2010 over 2009. But only 17% more sales resulted on that increased volume, which means that more property failed to sell in 2010. And where there is an abundance of inventory, prices tend to remain flat. Just as they did in 2010 with an average selling price of $ 163 per square foot. (If you cannot see the FULL Article click the link.)

What the HELL happened to my equity?

Think you know everything about Homeowner Equity, Equity Appreciation and Country Club home values...well think again Country Club homeowner.

Many of us in our 60's have always know that the American dream of owning your own home came with a huge side benefit...Appreciation In Value. It was like building a nest egg for the future, and this easy way of gaining equity would see to it that our future would be secure.

The best part, we did not even have to do anything to actually generate those huge increases in value, the market did it for us.

We purchased homes in places like Shadow Hills, Del Web Sun City, Indian Springs, to have a nice comfortable place to live, and relax and even play some golf. All we needed to do was to make a small investment every month, and we would see our nest egg grow.

Of course we were smarter than the market, we knew when we bought that our homes value would continue to rise and we of course would be able to sell for more than we paid. Instant Equity, that is what they call.

If anything, the past had taught us...keep making your monthly mortgage payment... keep up on the home maintenance... and your equity will increase year after year... after year.

Of course it wasn't really anything that we did, to get these huge increases in equity, it was more a matter of you know... being in the right place, at the right time. Unearned Equity, that is what they called it.

Here is the best example of Unearned Equity, that I can find.

Lets suppose that you purchased a new home in the year 1960. And held onto it until the year 2006, when it was sold. The following table shows the decade by decade change in values, relative to the cost of purchasing a new home.