The Long Threatened Price Per Square Foot Chart

OK, maybe it's only been threatened a couple of times over the past week or two.

There are a lot of ways to express home values for a market, and none of them are perfect. When most media outlets talk about home values, they typically discuss median prices. This can be a useful number in trying to figure out what market segments are most active, but they tend not to reflect the changes in values that happen in market cycles.

I prefer to measure price trends in our market by average price per square foot for sold units. This is again a less than perfect measuring stick, but it tends to show changes in overall values a little more accurately than median prices. Not all areas in our market will track to this number - some, like North Vandenberg Village, have seen a bit less price erosion than, say, Mission Hills. At one point a while back, I tried to break it down by area, but I found that there were too few data points in most areas to make the data meaningful.

These numbers are taken primarily from the Lompoc Valley Association of Realtors MLS. This represents all houses and condos sold in ZIP Code 93436 for each quarter in our MLS. I omitted sales that were primarily land value listings, such as Cebada Canyon homes on large parcels. In a very few instances, I've filled in square footage data that was missing from our MLS with information from county records.

OK, the link is coming - as I alluded to a couple of posts back, it's not for the faint of heart. Seriously. Viewer discretion is advised. Do not click on this link if you are pregnant or have a heart condition. Viewing this link may cause nausea, hives, and hair loss. You must be at least this tall to click on this link.

OK, you've been warned...

Click here.

Told you so. The good news is, it looks like this quarter might be just a touch better than last at this early stage. I won't have another one of these charts up until sometime in mid-April, so we'll see then.