The NZ Herald article today tracking the fall out from the 15th September 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros cites the consequential impact on website traffic.
The specific chart to which the article refers is presented below. The chart measures the weekly total sessions (number of NZ website visitors) across a basket of 7 real estate websites – the leading sites including realestate.co.nz, trade me property, Harcourts, Open2view and other. The chart is indexed based on a rolling 52 week average to thereby exclude the inherent growth of web traffic and in so doing provides a clearer view of seasonality and market trends.
The key takeaway from this chart is that in comparing 2008 weekly traffic to 2007 it is very clear how the global economic recession significantly impacted property viewing online as a surrogate of consumer confidence in the property market either by active buyers or casual observers. The 2008 line starts the year below 2007 and never once does it really show any demonstration of exceeding that performance. Compare this to the latest chart for 2009 which shows the far more active level for this year to date.
The component of this 2008 chart that relates to the Lehman Bros collapse can better be seen in the exploded chart below.
Here is where the 2007 performance shows a more traditional seasonal upturn in the spring. For 2008 that upturn did began in late August with a strong couple of weeks until as shown the 15 September week’s performance kicked in. However from then on the differential performance to 2007 only grew wider and consequentially from an online searching perspective the real estate market failed to have a spring pick up – remaining very quiet through to the end of the year and the traditional seasonal downturn at Christmas.
Very interesting facts and figures. I have been in the business since 1983 and this time last year the residential market would be the worst I have ever experienced with volumes well down, nobody through most open homes, and houses taking months to sell, in fact many homes that were listed last Sept/Oct/Nov didn’t sell until early 2009.
At the start of 2009 in Pt Chevalier there were 56 homes for sale and at a 2008 sell rate of only 7 per month there was 8 months supply on hand. Today there are only 16 on the market and at a 2009 sell rate of 11 per month we have the most serious shortage of supply I have ever witnessed.
It is incredible to think that this time last year we were in the worst market in decades yet just one year later the July/August/September period has been as busy as any I can ever remember with hundreds through open homes, multiple offers on virtually every home and even sold one on Friday without showing anyone through it – purchased off the photographs by a buyer who was simply sick of missing out!
So it will be interesting to see how the market goes over summer but right now we need at least 25 to 30 homes in Pt Chevalier and if we could get them we could sell them all within a fortnight!