Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Orange County Market Report - July Pending Sales holding up well compared to National Averages

[ 1st Graph Below] - The overall Months of Inventory for All Price Ranges is still rising as a steady rate, which indicates the market is slowing down.  This is due to a combination of the 1st Time Homebuyer Tax Credit termination, and  the dog Days of Summer slowdown… the true test will come around September or October, for in past years, this indicator would max out and then decline in those months…. if it does not Max out this time, this may signal the beginning of double dip in home prices.   

[2nd Graph below] - As can be seen, all Price Ranges are beginning to slow down, with the High End (Prices above %1.1Mil) as usual, being the softest at around 11.5 Months of Inventory which is a soft Buyers market.  On the other end of the spectrum at the "Less than $450,000" price range, the months of inventory is 1.8 months, which is a brisk Sellers Market, often times results in multiple offers on well price listings… Albeit, most of these listing that sell quickly are either bank owned REO properties or short sales.

[ 3rd Graph Below ] - This Graph shows the overall number of homes for sale (Inventory) compared to the number of homes Pending in Escrow (current Rate of Sales)…  As can be seen, Inventory of Active Homes for sale continues to steadily rise since the beginning of this year, while the rate of sales (Pending in Escrow), has been steadily declining since April/May of this year.  Of interesting note, is the number of Homes Pending at this time compared to last year…  The national press has been making the headlines about how the number of sales (or homes Pending under contract) has dropped by 25% in July of this year, as compared to July last year.  As can be seen in this graph, the rate of sales has started to decline since April, but at a much slower rate of decline compared to national reports.  In July of this year, the number of homes in Escrow was 1,809, as compared to last July which had  1,736, which actually represented an increase of 4%... not a decline of 25%. 

[ 4th Graph Below ] -  As we estimated well over a year ago, the overall dramatic decrease in the Months of Inventory put a halt to price reductions…  prices have been holding steady for over a year now.  If the Months of inventory keeps rising, and does not Max out in October,  we may see an additional small decline in prices in the months ahead…

 

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