Although home values have been skyrocketing at a record  pace, eating into affordability, the housing market is not going to cool anytime soon. 

Housing Will Remain Hot

The Expected Market Time has remained at unprecedented low levels and will not budge much for the remainder of the year.

 Everybody looks forward to the Super Bowl. It is not just the excitement surrounding championship football, or the extravagant, over-the-top television commercials, or getting together with family and friends to enjoy the game. It is also about the bountiful feast, the plethora of food options. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken wings, several varieties of chips, nachos, chili-cheese dip, spinach-artichoke dip, cheese, crackers, nuts, pretzels, beer, soda,…

Orange County Housing Report:Forbearance, Foreclosures, Facts

Seemingly everyone is expecting a wave of foreclosure due to forbearance, yet taking a closer look at the facts reveals that it simply in not going to happen

The Distressed Market

Fewer homeowners are opting to sell despite homes appreciating to record levels.

The general public fears that the national forbearance program will lead to a wave of foreclosures and cause chaos in today’s sizzling hot real estate market. Everyone has heard of the vast number of homeowners who have turned to forbearance during the pandemic amidst economic shutdowns and slowdowns. Forbearance allowed borrowers to pause their payments. Repayment of the missed payments can be done all at once, with a…

Ever since the Great Recession, far fewer homeowners have been selling their homes annually, and now even fewer areopting to participate in selling their homes.

Lack of Sellers

Fewer homeowners are opting to sell despite homes appreciating to record levels.

Homeowners across the nation watched the housing market take a brutal pounding during the Great Recession as their equity vanished in a blink. Many lost their homes to foreclosures or short sales. As a result, remain in their homes for a lot longer. There are fewer homeowners who opt to sell every year, and even with record home values, the trend continues.

It is not just an Orange County phenomenon or isolated to just Southern California. Nor is it unique to the state of California. A…

Potential buyers are being fooled into thinking it is not a good time to purchase and are delaying their plans, ignoring economic facts.

Housing’s Strength

The housing boom has everything to do with supply and demand, and those fundamental features are not going to change anytime soon.

When housing is surging with seemingly no end in sight, society cannot help but flashback to 2001 through 2006. In 2004 and 2005, the Case-Shiller U.S. Home Price Index showed red-hot home price appreciation between 10% and 14.5%. Everybody knows what happened next, the housing bubble eventually popped and led to double-digit home price depreciation in 2008 and 2009. In May of this year, U.S. home price appreciation reached 14.6%, its highest level since…

Orange County Housing Report:  Top 5 Trends

When there is so much noise swirling around housing, it is a good idea to take a step back and focus on the trends

Top 5 Housing Trends

With nearly half of 2021 in the rearview mirror, there are noticeable trends that have developed.

1. The number of available homes to purchase is finally starting to rise. The unprecedented, ultra-low inventory has been the story for over a year now. At the start of last year, there already were not enough homes on the market, and then COVID-19 made things worse when many homeowners opted to not sell their homes. Ultimately, that led to this year’s anemic historically low level of available homes. In fact, today’s inventory is 64% less than the 5-year average…

Orange County Housing Report:  Summer Transition

The Summer Market is officially here and with it typically

comes an increase in the inventory, a slight drop in

demand, and a rise in market time.

Expect a downshift from the Spring Market to the Summer Market.

The distractions of summer impact the housing market. The busiest time of the year in terms of demand, the Spring Market, comes to an end with the conclusion of the school year and graduations. The Summer Market lasts from the end of May to the start of school at the end of August. Summer is when active buyers are pulled away from the frantic pace of housing. Kids are home and parents are busy carpooling to camps, water parks, pools, beaches, and friends’ houses.

During the…

Orange County Housing Report: Is Housing Unaffordable?

As home values rocket upwards, affordability weakens, yet homes are still not too far out of reach for most buyers because of low mortgage rates. Low Rates Prop Up Affordability Even with record level home prices.

Low mortgage rates have kept affordability in check.

Looking only at housing prices tells only part of the story. It is important to also consider household incomes and the prevailing mortgage rates. Naysayers are quick to point out how the median sales price was much lower back in prior years; however, taking into consideration both the median income and the average 30-year mortgage rate illustrates how buyers can afford so much more today. The historically low mortgage…

Orange County Housing Report:   Crash Coming?

With housing values soaring like they did prior to the Great Recession coupled with recent inflation news, many are calling for a correction in housing.

No Crash Coming

Housing data illustrates that there is not a housing crash on the horizon.

Once again, housing is soaring upward with seemingly no end in sight. Buyers are tripping over each other, willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars above the asking price. Throw in the news of rising inflation and the potential of drastically higher mortgage rates, the madness must come to a screeching halt soon, right? Even though so many are anticipating and reporting that a housing crash is eminent, it simply is not going to occur, not now, not…

Orange County Housing Report: On the Endangered List

The lower price ranges are disappearing with far fewer homes available to purchase, and it is impacting the number of affordable closed sales.

Vanishing Lower Ranges

A mind-blowing 29% fewer homes have come on the market below $750,000 so far this year.

In the first quarter of 2012, there were 5,553 closed sales below $750,000, 87% of all sales. It was 71% of all sales in 2016, and 51% last year. In 2021, only 41% of all sales were below $750,000 in the first quarter. As home prices have appreciated over the years, the lower price ranges have dwindled and became a smaller percentage of the housing stock. It is not merely the fact that fewer homeowners within these more affordable price…

 Orange County Housing Report:  Extra!  Extra!  Inventory Rising!

 Now that the Spring Market has finally arrived, a new trend has emerged, a rising active listing inventory.

A Rising Inventory

After continuously dropping since last October, the active listing inventory rose by 6%. 

Other than the luxury end, every price range experienced a rise in the number of homes available. The largest increases occurred in the hottest price ranges. Home priced between $500,000 to $750,000 increased by 41 additional homes, up 13%. From $750,000 to $1 million, there were 86 additional homes, up 25%. Below $500,000 and between $1 million and $1.25 million, the price ranges increased by 4%. That may not be a lot of extra homes, but for buyers, it is…