Toronto Condo Charts -- Feedback requested

[rbt]

http://www.torontocondocharts.com

The chart website allows you to pick your own measurements (1 bedroom, 2, 3+, all), price (close price, listing, lease, maintenance fees, and taxes) and region/neighbourhood/ward/building/cluster of buildings (City Place). The dataset is primarily from MLS between 2000 through 2010 and I hope to extend back to 1990 within a couple of months and applies to condominiums only.

Here is an example of a 1-bedroom comparison for closing price between Toronto, Rosedale Ward 28, and City Place.

http://www.torontocondocharts.com/n...ity-place/toronto/toronto-centre-rosedale-28/

Feedback about how to make the website more useful to you would be very handy right now.

Feel free to hot-link the charts into forums, your own website, or other places. Charts will self-update if you hotlink though I ask that you also link to the page which contains the chart so the person viewing it can get some additional information about how it was generated.

One known issue is that improved normalization of prices is required for low volume buildings so that individual datapoints giggle a little less.

Thanks for your help!

NOTE: This website is not and will never be for the gathering of leads or personal marketing. It is simply a tool that I believe everybody should have access to for their own research.

 

[cdr108]

thanks for the work and charts ...

suggestion:
- keep the reference dates consistent ... your dates are every 25 months apart. it would be simplier and easier to compare if you kept it every 24 month like January of each (or 2) year.
- is there a way to break it down units by SF also since the size of suites are all over the place and getting smaller ...
1B used to be 600-800 SF, now they start from 450 SF and developers are squeezing 1+1 or 2 bedroom units out of 600-800 SF.

 

[Observer Walt]

This looks impressive. I complement you for it. However I don't understand where the numbers along the vertical axis came from. I would have expected rounded numbers
(250,000, 275,000, ...) or am I missing something?

 

[rbt]

This looks impressive. I complement you for it. However I don't understand where the numbers along the vertical axis came from. I would have expected rounded numbers
(250,000, 275,000, ...) or am I missing something?

You're not missing anything. I'm using a general purpose charting software (Chart::Clicker) which takes the simplistic approach of dividing the top and bottom values by the number of ticks requested and returning exact values. 3 significant digits is enough and I will round them down. Ideally I would be able to get the chart to pick better tick locations but this will do for now.

The dates have a similar issue. Since I'm mining data for the 90's, I will leave it as is until that is up then will try to adjust.

 

[rbt]

thanks for the work and charts ...

suggestion:
- keep the reference dates consistent ... your dates are every 25 months apart. it would be simplier and easier to compare if you kept it every 24 month like January of each (or 2) year.
- is there a way to break it down units by SF also since the size of suites are all over the place and getting smaller ...
1B used to be 600-800 SF, now they start from 450 SF and developers are squeezing 1+1 or 2 bedroom units out of 600-800 SF.

The date item I will fix once I get the 90's data up. The toolkit doesn't auto-pick nice round divisions at the moment.

I will need to think about how to add sqft ranges to the bedroom count. I'm not certain how reliable that data will be but I will take a look.

 

[rbt]

The date item I will fix once I get the 90's data up. The toolkit doesn't auto-pick nice round divisions at the moment.

It didn't take as long as I thought it might to get the toolkit to pick nicer divisions.

Price, Volume, and Date (Year) divisions should now be much nicer.

 

[daveto]

I presume those are nominal dollars? If so, I think it would be more useful to see real dollars (inflation adjusted).

If that is too much work, perhaps just add in a comparison line showing a $200k starting amount increasing by inflation over time.

 

[ajc]

This looks really useful! Could I request the ability to see values that are exact on a month-by month basis (not a 3 month moving average), so that values up to the currently released data can be plotted? It would be nice to see data up to July/Aug 2010.

 

[rbt]

I presume those are nominal dollars? If so, I think it would be more useful to see real dollars (inflation adjusted).

If that is too much work, perhaps just add in a comparison line showing a $200k starting amount increasing by inflation over time.

I have the URLs configured to allow for various adjustments. I intend to allow adjusting by both inflation (CPI) and construction inflation. Haven't gathered the data yet. Working on getting data back to 1990 at the moment.

This looks really useful! Could I request the ability to see values that are exact on a month-by month basis (not a 3 month moving average), so that values up to the currently released data can be plotted? It would be nice to see data up to July/Aug 2010.

Listing information will eventually be brought up to the most recent month. Sales data is trickier since I need to wait until a short time after the sale actually closes.

 

[prtanner]

What happened to the site?

Is it still available?

 

[rbt]

Is it still available?

Sorry. Got a complaint and a request that, despite not being valid, I've chosen not to expend the time and effort to fight in court.