April 2018 RSS Feed

A sudden spike in the inventory is an ominous sign for sellers to approach the market carefully. 

An Inventory Spike: In the past two weeks, the active inventory had its largest increase since July 2013.

The script for the Orange County housing market has been the same for quite some time now. The year starts with very few homes on the market. The inventory rises slowly, peaking sometime during the summer. The long-term average for the active listing inventory is 8,000 homes; yet, it cannot even hit that level for a day, falling astonishingly short year after year. The headlines have been the same: “Not Enough Homes on the Market” and “Buyers are Tripping Over Themselves to Purchase.” 

Suddenly, something has changed. More homes are coming on…

 Good Afternoon!

The lower end of the housing market is not only disappearing, it is impacting pending and closed sales. 

Vanishing Lower Ranges: A mind-blowing 15% fewer homes have come on the market below $750,000 so far this year compared to 2017.

The market has been blistering hot for years now. For homes priced below $750,000, it has been a hot seller’s market (an expected market time less than 60-days) since October 2015. Home prices have appreciated dramatically for six solid years. As a result, there are only a handful of detached homes priced below $500,000 today, 55 to be precise, or 1% of the active listing inventory. Back in January 2012, there were 1,806, 22% of the active inventory. Detached homes below $500,000 have essentially…