It’s a new year and a new decade, so welcome to the first Quick Take of 2020!
I realize both the writing and the Quick Takes have been very sparse because… well… the holidays. Let’s leave it at that. Now, let’s move on into the brave new world.
Notorious TL;DR
Since we last did a Quick Take, here are the new posts up on Notorious.
Grading Time! The 2018 and 2019 Predictions
This is an annual tradition around here, where I evaluate how I did with the predictions made before the year actually began. But I missed one year, so this year, I did both the 2018 and 2019 predictions in a double feature.
Basically, I went 1.5 for 7 for a .214 batting average in 2018 and then 2 for 7 for a robust .286 average in 2019. Seeing as how these are predictions guaranteed wrong, I don’t know if that’s good or bad. 🙂 But if you’re kind of new around here, it might be interesting to take a look back at my earlier predictions.
The Seven Most Interesting People in Real Estate, 2019 Edition
I started this post a couple of years ago because it was fun to do. It stays fun to do, actually, so I did another one. Please check it out if you have time and let me know if it’s entertaining. The list for 2019 is:
- Rich Barton, Zillow
- Leslie Appleton-Young, California Assoc. of REALTORS
- Jack Ryan, REX
- Katie Johnson, NAR
- Newsday’s Long Island Divided Team
- Emily Chenevert, ABOR
- Sharran Srivaatsa
The Decade That Was in Real Estate
This was a post that came to me as I was just really thinking about the past 10 years and reading some of my older posts from 10 years ago. Turns out, I came to some interesting conclusions about the past 10 years. Well, maybe not conclusions, since I’ve been thinking them for a while, but I guess I summarized them all. Hope you find it interesting.
Quick Takes
So what happened this past week worth noting? To be honest, not a whole lot. The real year doesn’t get going until this coming week, in my opinion. But still…
Case-Shiller Index Now Shows Housing Prices are 15% Above Pre-Bubble Levels
On New Year’s Eve, Inman ran a small story with zero comments that the Cash-Shiller national home price index is up, up, up. It quoted Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, who said:
“With October’s 3.3 percent increase in the national composite index, home prices are currently more than 15 percent above the pre-financial crisis peak reached July 2006. October’s results were broad-based, as both our 10- and 20-city composites rose,” Lazzara added. “Of the 20 cities in the composite, only San Francisco saw a year-over-year price decline in October.”
I am struggling to understand if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I know everybody says things are different this time around, unemployment is low, there are no horrible mortgage products, etc. but… man… guess I’ll have to keep an eye on economics a bit more in 2020.
CRMLS Becomes the First MLS with 100K Members
I realize this is really a “landmark” for the tiny sub-industry that is the MLS, but… it is still an impressive accomplishment.
I honestly don’t want to get too deeply analytical about this, as I think 2020 is going to be an important year for the entire MLS space and I haven’t quite figured out where things will go (rather than where things ought to go — I’m better at prescription than at prediction.) But suffice to say that CRMLS is now about 10% of the total REALTOR membership. With 9 other CRMLS-sized MLSs (and BrightMLS in DC is close), that’s… about a million REALTORS.
What do the other 640 MLSs do then?
I know… we’ll never get there. Until we get there. So… here’s to 2020 in this unique space.
Housekeeping Notes
The website is undergoing a redesign along with some platform changes. I haven’t been all that happy with the platform I’ve had for over a year now. So watch for some changes in the coming weeks.
It looks like I will be attending Inman Connect in New York in January. If you’re a VIP Subscriber and you’ll be attending, I’d love to say hello. Let me know if you’re planning on being there, or even if you’ll be in the City during that week.
-rsh
