Sluggish

July 15, 2019

Due to fewer pending sales, the overall housing market is not as hot as it used to be.

Pending Activity: Housing has officially been sluggish in Orange County since April 2018 and it is not changing anytime soon.

The housing market has been moving along sluggishly since the spring of last year. In April 2018, demand (the last 30-days of pending sales) was off 11% compared to April 2017. By July 2018, it was off by 13%. As the year continued to unfold, muted demand became the new normal. After hearing how slow the market had become in 2018, many homeowners eagerly waited for 2019’s Spring Market. Yet, muted demand was not just a blip on the housing radar screen in 2018. Instead, sluggish demand had

Orange County Housing Report:  The Golden Opportunity 

July 1, 2019

Accurately pricing a home initially to avoid price reductions

is the most lucrative strategy.

Similarly, when a home initially comes on the market, the price will determine whether or not a seller will be raising their arms in the air with delight as they successfully close escrow. Buyers today do not want to pay much more than the most recent closed sale. Prices are a lot stickier. The days of rapid appreciation are now in the rearview mirror. Overpriced homes sit without success. Throwing a price out there just to test the market is not a wise strategy. Instead, carefully and methodically pricing a home is vital to cashing in on the Golden Opportunity,

LAST CALL!

June 17, 2019

There is not a lot of steam left in the best time of the

year to sell a home and get it under contract.

Last Call: In order for sellers to cash in on the most lucrative time to sell a home during the year, they better open up escrow soon.

This is the time of year when many sellers come on the market thinking they have an ample amount of time to market their home to take advantage of the Summer Market, but that simply is not the case. Yes, summer has just begun, but the Summer Market for housing already started in May. The housing market shifts away from the Spring Market with the distractions of the end of the school year, especially graduations. From there, the distractions of summer and the

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Click the links below for trolleys in the surrounding areas!!

Dana Point Trolley

Laguna Beach Trolley

Mission Viejo Shuttle

San Juan Capistrano Trolley

Sometimes it is a great idea to step away from the

noise swirling around housing and focus on the trends.

Top 5 Housing Trends: With five months of the year in the rear view mirror, there are crystal clear trends in 2019.

Everybody seems to have an opinion about the direction of the housing market. “Up!” “Down!” “The housing run has peaked!” “I’m going to wait for values to come crashing down.” In the end, there is way too much noise that is not rooted in facts, ignoring the data. It is time to step aside from the commotion and look at the trends that have surfaced in 2019.

Here’s a breakdown of the “Top 5” current Orange County housing trends:

1.      There are a lot more homes on the market. In fact, this is the highest

Prospective buyers and sellers constantly ask when is it the right time to buy or sell. It is now.

THE Right Time: With low interest rates and a surge in demand, it is a good time for both buyers and sellers to make a move.

When is “the” best time to make a move? For prospective buyers and sellers, the current housing conditions and trends point to NOW. How can it be both an excellent time to buy and sell at the very same time? For buyers, it is all about interest rates. For sellers, it is all about top dollar and cashing in on this year’s consistent, growing demand. 

At the end of 2018, prognosticators, economic experts, and major financial institutions were all forecasting interest rates anywhere from 5.25% to 6% in 2019. That seemed more

Many buyers are sitting on the fence waiting for interest rates to fall, but don’t know when to cash in their chips.

Gambling on Rates: Interest rates have fallen to 4.25%, the lowest level in over a year.

No matter what your age, or what kind of music you like, everybody has listened to and knows the lyrics to Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler.” “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run.” It is a song about a young man who stumbles upon gambling advice from a seasoned, old, veteran gambler “on a train bound for nowhere.”

So many potential buyers are just like the young gambler, they simply don’t know when they should walk away from the fence they are sitting on and cash in their

Not only have the clocks changed, so has the housing market.

The Spring Market: The best conditions to sell a home are right now.

It is that time of the year again. The hills are a dazzling green. Trees are beginning to bud new leaves. Flowers are opening their petals for the first time. Hummingbirds are feeding on the sweet nectar from birds-of-paradise. The season is changing and so is the housing market.

Housing has been accelerating all year and is officially moving at full speed. It took a while to ramp up, starting the year with an Expected Market Time of 140 days, a slight Buyer’s Market. [The Expected Market Time is the amount of time it would take for a home that comes on the market today to open up escrow down the road]. The market

Ever since the Great Recession, far fewer homeowners have been selling their homes annually, a trend that is not going away.

Homeowners across the nation watched the housing market take a pounding during the Great Recession as their equity vanished in a blink. Many lost their homes to short sales or foreclosures. Everybody either personally got stung by the correction or knew of somebody who did. As a result, a new trend emerged to avoid a lobster red burn in the future: homeowners stay in their homes a lot longer. There are far fewer homeowners who opt to sell every year. Even with record home values, the trend continues.

The lack of supply and years of red-hot demand, juiced by historically low interest rates, has resulted in homes

The window of opportunity to take advantage of the Summer Market is already beginning to close.

Summer is here! It is the season of longer days, plenty of Southern California sunshine, beckoning, sandy beaches, and refreshing dips in the pool. With summer comes all of its distractions. There are also family vacations, Disneyland, California Adventure, Knott’s Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, LEGOLAND, Raging Waters, the Discovery Science Center, Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo.

The best time of the year to sell a home, the Spring Market, is officially in the rearview mirror. It is now the Summer Market, the second best time of the year to sell a home. For some, buying a home takes a back seat to all of the family fun. Many will still purchase, but