Tag Archives: california real estate

Real Estate

California Real Estate Sales Up

 house-selling

 

  A survey by the California Association of Realtors found that sales of California real estate have actually increased from the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2009. Survey respondents indicated that attractive prices and low mortgage rates were the leading factors motivating them to buy. For more see the following article from HousingWire.  

After a two-year downturn, California home sales have increased 27% through the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, spurred by low home prices, mortgage rates and a belief that rates will increase in the near future, according to a survey by the California Association of Realtors (CAR).
Lower home prices encouraged 68% of the survey’s respondents, while 39% said low interest rates put them in the market for a new home. An additional 23% named the belief that mortgage rates will increase in the near future as a motivating factor in their decision to buy a home.
Distressed sales made up more than half of California’s home sales. The 38% percent of homebuyers that purchased real-estate-owned (REO) properties reported they had the most difficulty securing financing, on averaging rating their experience an 8.9 on a scale of 10. While short-sale properties only accounted for 13% of California sales, buyers rated their financing experience the easiest, a 7.6 on average. The 49% of home buyers involved in a traditional transaction rated their financing experience a 7.7 on average.
The glut of bank-owned properties on the market has kept California’s housing inventory stocked, giving buyers many options.

“In contrast to peak years when inventory levels were at record lows, inventory levels over the past several months have been in the range of the long-run average,” CAR chief economist Leslie Appleton-Young said in a release. “With many homes available on the market at more affordable prices in the past year, home buyers have been devoting more time to considering and carefully selecting their home during the researching and buying process.”

The average home buyer spent 8.4 weeks considering their purchase in 2009, up from 7.2 weeks in 2008. Buyers spent 10.3 weeks searching for a home with their real estate agent, compared to 8.7 weeks in 2008.

Nearly one-third of respondents who purchased in a traditional market sale said they either did not know or were not sure they knew the terms of their loan. A smaller percentage, 12%, of REO buyers and 7% of short-sale buyers indicated the same response.

This article has been republished from HousingWire. You can also view this article at HousingWire a mortgage finance news website

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Estate

More Signs of Housing Recovery

california-map-increase-dec

While there may be another storm of foreclosures on the horizon, at least for now there are some signs of recovery for our housing market. California is the bell weather of the economy for the nation. Any sign that the housing market in California is recovering is a sign that the economy is recovering.

It’s the first back-to-back increase in the state’s housing prices in two years, following an increase in the median price of homes in March from February. The median price of $256,700 for single-family homes in April is up from a median price of $253,040 in March, according to estimates by the California Association of Realtors. (In Nevada County for the month of May the median has ranged from $295,000 to $280,000)

Overall the housing values in California increased 1.4% statewide.

The April prices were still off 36.5% from the same month a year ago, but the sales of 540,360 homes on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis represented a 49.2% rise over the same time, the Realtors group reported Thursday.

April also marked the eighth consecutive month of single-family-home sales above 500,000 units. The inventory of unsold homes continued to shrink, to 4.6 months’ supply from 9.8 months a year ago. “It appears that the median price is now at or near the bottom,” said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the Realtors’ association, who has previously made more subdued comments.
“At best, some markets have at least temporarily leveled off in price,” said Andrew LePage, analyst at MDA Dataquick Information Services, a market-research firm in La Jolla, Calif. “I don’t see any markets that have clearly bottomed out.”

In general, the best-performing markets across the state in terms of sales volume were in lower-priced, inland areas that had seen some of the steepest declines in prices. Sales in the high-desert region outside Los Angeles, for example, more than doubled in April from the same month a year ago, after price declines of 49.5% over the same time. Median prices, even month to month, continued to fall there amid a glut of foreclosures.

But in several more densely populated areas, the median price was stronger. Los Angeles County’s median rose 1.9% in April from March, after falling 31% over the past year. In Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara County, the median price rose 3.6% after a year-over-year fall of 38.2%, the Realtor’s group said. Boosting sales are some of the best affordability rates in almost a decade, say economists.
Realtors’ officials said sales remain weaker for more-expensive homes. Inventories of unsold homes in the under-$500,000 segment, for example, shrank to nearly three months’ supply in April from about 10 months a year ago. But the inventory of homes priced at more than $1 million rose to about 17 months from 10 months a year earlier.

The problem for the higher end of the market is that lending has tightened greatly for the jumbo mortgages that are often needed to buy a home costing more than $500,000, say economists. Some lenders now require down payments of as much as 30% to 40%. As a result, sales have remained anemic in pricey markets like San Francisco

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Real Estate

Real Estate Listing Prices Increasing in California

sold-signs

There are further indications that we may have hit the bottom of the housing markets. Real estate sales continue to go up in Nevada County with pending sales in the 200’s range. At the beginning of the year, the pending sales were below the 150’s. Sacramento saw a decline in inventory for April which is unusual. According the Sacramento Bee, sine 1994, only four years, 1995, 2003, 2008 and 2009 have seen for sale inventory fall from March to April. It also appears to have happened nationally this year.

According to PR Web, listing prices are increasing in California:

“Listing prices rose at the fastest rate in the California markets with San Jose up 3.7%, Los Angeles up 3.2% and San Diego up 2.8% in April. Prices in 18 markets are now showing three months of sequential listing price increases. Asking prices fell at the fastest rate during April in Las Vegas followed by Salt Lake City – down 3.8% and 2.6% respectively.

“Broadly rising asking prices in this difficult economic environment demonstrate the powerful effect of seasonality in the housing industry,” said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director for Real IQ. “We expect to see continued strength during the next few months of the spring selling season fueled by historically low mortgage rates. We won’t be able to call a bottoming of the market until we see stability continue into the seasonally weak fall and winter months.”

Inventory levels decreased in a majority of major markets with inventory falling in 15 of 26 markets. Across the 10-City Composite Index markets, inventory fell by 1.5% in April and was effectively unchanged during the most recent three-month period. Inventory grew by the largest amount in Boston up 6.3% followed by Austin up 4.9%. Inventory fell by the largest amount in Phoenix and San Francisco where it contracted by 11.0% and 7.1% respectively.”

So no one is predicting that we are at the bottom of the market.  All I know is that sales in Nevada County are going up, and prices are starting to rise.