Housing will shift to the Holiday Market in just 7-weeks and buyer and seller activity will plunge to its lowest levels of the year.

End of Year Expectations

Seven more weeks until the slowest season of the year starts, the Holiday Market.

From now through the week before Thanksgiving, it is the LAST HURRAH before housing transitions from the Autumn Market to the Holiday Market, the slowest time of the year for real estate in terms of supply and demand. The holidays are filled with distractions. As a result, the hunt for a home takes a back seat for many buyers and fewer homeowners take advantage of selling their homes regardless of how incredibly hot the rest of the year will be for real estate. The overall speed of the market cools…

The insane housing market has been frustrating buyers for more than a year now with unbelievable, relentless competition, making it exceedingly difficult to secure a home.

Buyers Should Not Give Up

The housing market will remain a Hot Seller’s Market for some time and home values will continue to rise.

The housing market has been extremely hot since June of last year and has not let up ever since. Buyers are faced with crowds of interest on just about every home that is placed on the market. Multiple offers are the norm. Homes selling for above their list prices is the norm. Homes instantly selling is the norm. It is tough to be a buyer looking to purchase in today’s housing market. It feels as if they are constantly against the ropes in a…

The Autumn Market is officially here and with it typically comes a drop in the supply of available homes to purchase, falling demand, and the overall speed of the market remains the same.

Autumn Market

Expect less activity with fewer homes coming on the market and fewer buyers looking to find a home.

It is no longer the “prime time” season for real estate. The Spring and Summer Markets are in the rearview mirror. Housing will now shift gears and transition to a slower time of the year. Despite how hot the market has been, this year will be no different. The inventory, demand, and closed sales will all fall, and the Expected Market Time (the time between hammering in the FOR-SALE sign to opening escrow) will not change much at all.…

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…