OK, Wake Forest is off the hook now - everybody else I had picked wound up tanking as well...
Good morning, here we go again with our weekly look at activity in our market:
Active Listings: 101
Contingent Listings: 38
Pending Listings: 30 (17.8% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 11 (7.9%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
I'll be updating this chart with first quarter prices in a couple of weeks, and breaking down the quarter for you. I'll have to wait for some of the inevitable late postings of some sold units.
I said a few weeks ago that I'd be concerned about our pending sales if we got to the end of the month and we were under 20%. What I didn't count on with that thought, however, was the idea that our contingent listings - which I don't factor in that percentage, mostly because they are less reliable closings - would actually get to a point where they would outnumber the pendings. So I'm not all that concerned about declining pending sales as an indicator of softer demand. What we're seeing is more a function of our inventory shrinking to the point where buyers are moving to short sales to find what they want.
Come back later this week for a Focus on the Southside. And I think Maria was talking about posting something soon.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Focus On Mission Hills
This week, I want to shine the spotlight on Mission Hills and take a look at how the market has been doing up there. In case you aren't familiar with the area, Mission Hills is a pretty homogeneous neighborhood in terms of the homes. The homes up there were all built within a few years of each other during a boom time in the Lompoc Valley's history. In the late 50's and early 60's, Vandenberg AFB was ramping up its space launch mission, and the population in our area exploded. A lot of the housing in the central parts of the city and in Vandenberg Village was built during this period to fill the housing need, and Mission Hills was another part of that boom, built to fill a need for workforce housing.
Our MLS divides this area into Upper and Lower Mission Hills. To look at a map, it's kind of counter intuitive - Upper Mission Hills is the south side and Upper is the north side, separated by Burton Mesa Boulevard. The homes in Upper Mission Hills tend to be a little bigger, but none of the homes up there were built big. Some homes have had some additions done, but the stock floor plans vary from around 900 square feet up to about 1270 square feet. They are mostly 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath homes, but there are some 4 bedrooms homes, and the odd 5 bedroom (always something with an addition of some nature).
The area tends to be a real mixed bag for condition of the homes. Some areas have pockets of really well maintained homes showing pride of ownership, but there are also areas that have several homes that look sadly neglected. I had some hopes when the market and economy was better that we would start to see more of the former as values came up and owners had more money to put into their homes. I still have some hopes that this will happen in the future. One of the things that the area has going for it is a very nice rural feel and easy access to La Purisima Mission and its hiking trails. In fact, there are several homes that back up to Mission property. Another good point for the area is school district. I don't want to open a can of worms here, but we've had several clients tell us that they absolutely want to be in the Cabrillo High School district, and this is the most affordable entry into that district.
Like most of the rest of our market, we're light on inventory up there right now. We only have 3 active and 4 contingent homes on the market in our MLS today. Of those, only 1 is neither a short sale or REO. There is only one pending unit there at the moment, an REO home. We've seen 5 sold units in the past three months, 4 of which were REO's (the other was a traditional seller). The REO bug bit this area incredibly hard in 2008. 21 of the 28 sales there last year were REO's. Interestingly, we only had one closed short sale in the area.
As you might expect from the level of REO activity and the age and condition of the homes, this area has taken a slightly bigger hit than the market as a whole in terms of value. Looking at the sold units, it looks like Mission Hills homes lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of value over the last year (vs. 27% for the entire market), and around 50-55% from the peak (vs. 48%).
I would expect that due to the age of the homes here and the overall condition of the neighborhood, we'll probably see this area get price recovery after the rest of the market. As long as newer homes are affordable, they'll get first preference from most buyers. But when we start to see prices creep up in other segments and people have to stretch more to get into them, these homes will eventually follow suit.
Our MLS divides this area into Upper and Lower Mission Hills. To look at a map, it's kind of counter intuitive - Upper Mission Hills is the south side and Upper is the north side, separated by Burton Mesa Boulevard. The homes in Upper Mission Hills tend to be a little bigger, but none of the homes up there were built big. Some homes have had some additions done, but the stock floor plans vary from around 900 square feet up to about 1270 square feet. They are mostly 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath homes, but there are some 4 bedrooms homes, and the odd 5 bedroom (always something with an addition of some nature).
The area tends to be a real mixed bag for condition of the homes. Some areas have pockets of really well maintained homes showing pride of ownership, but there are also areas that have several homes that look sadly neglected. I had some hopes when the market and economy was better that we would start to see more of the former as values came up and owners had more money to put into their homes. I still have some hopes that this will happen in the future. One of the things that the area has going for it is a very nice rural feel and easy access to La Purisima Mission and its hiking trails. In fact, there are several homes that back up to Mission property. Another good point for the area is school district. I don't want to open a can of worms here, but we've had several clients tell us that they absolutely want to be in the Cabrillo High School district, and this is the most affordable entry into that district.
Like most of the rest of our market, we're light on inventory up there right now. We only have 3 active and 4 contingent homes on the market in our MLS today. Of those, only 1 is neither a short sale or REO. There is only one pending unit there at the moment, an REO home. We've seen 5 sold units in the past three months, 4 of which were REO's (the other was a traditional seller). The REO bug bit this area incredibly hard in 2008. 21 of the 28 sales there last year were REO's. Interestingly, we only had one closed short sale in the area.
As you might expect from the level of REO activity and the age and condition of the homes, this area has taken a slightly bigger hit than the market as a whole in terms of value. Looking at the sold units, it looks like Mission Hills homes lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of value over the last year (vs. 27% for the entire market), and around 50-55% from the peak (vs. 48%).
I would expect that due to the age of the homes here and the overall condition of the neighborhood, we'll probably see this area get price recovery after the rest of the market. As long as newer homes are affordable, they'll get first preference from most buyers. But when we start to see prices creep up in other segments and people have to stretch more to get into them, these homes will eventually follow suit.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 3/23/09
Well, I hope everyone is alive and well and that your brackets aren't completely trashed yet on this fine Monday morning. Mine look pretty good - 14 out of the sweet 16 still alive. If it weren't for Wake Forest (my dark horse final four team) laying an egg in the first round, I'd be doing incredibly well.
But you didn't come here to read about hoops , did you? Here's a snapshot of the market this morning:
Active Listings: 108
Contingent Listings: 30
Pending Listings: 33 (19.3% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 12 (8.7%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.4 months of inventory on the market this morning. Our pending sales have dropped below the 20% level for the first time in a little more than a year. A big part of that is that contingent listings have nearly doubled since the first of the year. In fact, if the current trend holds, we're going to see more contingent sales than pendings soon. I think a big part of what's causing this is our thin inventory. A lot of buyers are moving to short sales (which usually go into a contingent status for quite a while) for lack of better options. We're still seeing the good listings, especially the REO's, move very quickly.
Freakin' Wake Forest...
But you didn't come here to read about hoops , did you? Here's a snapshot of the market this morning:
Active Listings: 108
Contingent Listings: 30
Pending Listings: 33 (19.3% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 12 (8.7%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.4 months of inventory on the market this morning. Our pending sales have dropped below the 20% level for the first time in a little more than a year. A big part of that is that contingent listings have nearly doubled since the first of the year. In fact, if the current trend holds, we're going to see more contingent sales than pendings soon. I think a big part of what's causing this is our thin inventory. A lot of buyers are moving to short sales (which usually go into a contingent status for quite a while) for lack of better options. We're still seeing the good listings, especially the REO's, move very quickly.
Freakin' Wake Forest...
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Focus On Newer Construction
One of the things that I've been watching for the past several months is what's been happening in the market for newer homes in our market. We have seven or eight developments that have been built or are still building in our market over the past 8-10 years.
We have an interesting dynamic happening right now, both in our market and nationally. A lot of the newer developments out there were selling houses like they were brownies at a Grateful Dead show when our market was at its peak. This was the period when just about the only qualification needed to get a mortgage was the ability to fog a mirror, so there were some pretty risky loans made on a lot of these homes. You can probably guess where I'm going with this.
I took a look at homes in our market built since 2000, and I've eliminated homes that are being offered or were sold by the builder - I want to strictly look at resales here. As of today, we have 14 such homes on the market. Eight of those homes are short sales. At this point, none of them are REO's, which is kind of odd. I know of a couple of REO's that are coming up that will fit in this category, but they aren't available yet. We only have 3 pending units in this category, and two of those are REO's (no short sales).
Over the past year, we saw 44 sales of newer homes in our market, but 19 of those were sold by the builder, so that leaves 25. Of those, 15 were REO's and 7 were short sales. That REO number tracks almost identically with the market as a whole, but the short sales were a little higher than the norm in this segment. And the active listings would indicate that we can expect these numbers to get worse in the coming months.
Anytime distressed sales dominate a market, you're going to see some significant price erosion. In this case, it's not as bad as the market as a whole. Looking at sales from the peak period in late 2005, it looks like this segment has lost about 35-40% of value from the peak, while the market as a whole is closer to 50%. This shouldn't be surprising - as a rule, the newer the house, the better it holds value or appreciates. I would expect that when our market does start to recover, these homes will probably lead the charge.
Next week, I'm going in completely different direction - the "Focus On" post is going to take a look at Mission Hills. Be afraid.
We have an interesting dynamic happening right now, both in our market and nationally. A lot of the newer developments out there were selling houses like they were brownies at a Grateful Dead show when our market was at its peak. This was the period when just about the only qualification needed to get a mortgage was the ability to fog a mirror, so there were some pretty risky loans made on a lot of these homes. You can probably guess where I'm going with this.
I took a look at homes in our market built since 2000, and I've eliminated homes that are being offered or were sold by the builder - I want to strictly look at resales here. As of today, we have 14 such homes on the market. Eight of those homes are short sales. At this point, none of them are REO's, which is kind of odd. I know of a couple of REO's that are coming up that will fit in this category, but they aren't available yet. We only have 3 pending units in this category, and two of those are REO's (no short sales).
Over the past year, we saw 44 sales of newer homes in our market, but 19 of those were sold by the builder, so that leaves 25. Of those, 15 were REO's and 7 were short sales. That REO number tracks almost identically with the market as a whole, but the short sales were a little higher than the norm in this segment. And the active listings would indicate that we can expect these numbers to get worse in the coming months.
Anytime distressed sales dominate a market, you're going to see some significant price erosion. In this case, it's not as bad as the market as a whole. Looking at sales from the peak period in late 2005, it looks like this segment has lost about 35-40% of value from the peak, while the market as a whole is closer to 50%. This shouldn't be surprising - as a rule, the newer the house, the better it holds value or appreciates. I would expect that when our market does start to recover, these homes will probably lead the charge.
Next week, I'm going in completely different direction - the "Focus On" post is going to take a look at Mission Hills. Be afraid.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 3/16/09
Happy Monday morning once again! Let's have a look at this week's numbers:
Active Listings: 103
Contingent Listings: 29
Pending Listings: 34 (20.5% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 7 (5.3%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.1 months of inventory on the market this morning. Again, not a big change in the numbers this week. Pending units are down a bit more this week. I don't know if we have softening demand, or if we just have a lot of buyers not finding the right fit for them with our thin inventory. Could be a little of both.
Fun fact of the day: New listings year to date are down 42% from a year ago, while sold units for the same period are up about 3%.
Active Listings: 103
Contingent Listings: 29
Pending Listings: 34 (20.5% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 7 (5.3%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.1 months of inventory on the market this morning. Again, not a big change in the numbers this week. Pending units are down a bit more this week. I don't know if we have softening demand, or if we just have a lot of buyers not finding the right fit for them with our thin inventory. Could be a little of both.
Fun fact of the day: New listings year to date are down 42% from a year ago, while sold units for the same period are up about 3%.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Welcome Maria Slizys!
We have a new addition to the Lompoc Real Estate Blog. OK, she's not "new" - many of you know Maria Slizys from some deals we've worked together for you. We've been collaborating on business with Maria for a couple of years now, and we're excited to have her sharing her perspectives and insights with us here.
Maria brings 19 years of experience in real estate sales to the table, and she's seen her share of ups and downs in the market. I don't know exactly what to expect from her here in terms of subject matter and schedule, but I know it's going to be informative and entertaining. I'm sure there will be times when she'll have opinions and perspectives that differ from mine - and that's good. I'm looking forward to seeing what she has to say here.
Maria brings 19 years of experience in real estate sales to the table, and she's seen her share of ups and downs in the market. I don't know exactly what to expect from her here in terms of subject matter and schedule, but I know it's going to be informative and entertaining. I'm sure there will be times when she'll have opinions and perspectives that differ from mine - and that's good. I'm looking forward to seeing what she has to say here.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Another Focus On REO's
Back when I did my first "Focus On..." post on REO activity - January 27th - I pointed out how much these sales dominated our market last year. No surprise, that domination continues. So far this year, REO's account for 65% of our sold units and 69% of our pending units. The interesting thing is, they've only accounted for about 45% of the listings that have come on the market since 11/1/08. Once again, we see that price rules.
One of the things I also pointed out was the enormous discrepancy in last year's median price between REO and Non-REO sales. As you may recall, that number was $217,500 vs. $319,000. I said at the time that I'd have to chew on it, and chew on it I did. One of my first thoughts was that there must be a big discrepancy in the types of homes that each of these market segments represents. That's true to a certain extent - if you look at our higher end homes, Mesa Oaks and the Country Club, only 1 out of the 20 homes sold in those areas last year was an REO. So that does account for part of that spread.
But when I started looking at these two segments comparing apples to apples, I still saw a very significant spread in values. I searched for sold units in North & Central Lompoc and narrowed it down to houses between 1100 to 1500 square feet, built between 1955 and 1965. This is the "bread & butter" house in this market, where I'm most likely to get enough data points to be useful. What I saw here was still pretty incredible. Non-REO homes had a median sale price of $250,000, while REO homes had a median price of $207,500. That's a 17% difference for similar properties. Granted, REO properties tend to be in worse condition overall than "normal" homes, but that can vary a lot, and condition isn't enough to account for this.
I'd been somewhat baffled for several months as to why our values had dropped as much as they did in the face of shrinking inventory and increased demand. It just completely ran counter to what we learned in Economics 101 about supply and demand. But over the past several weeks, I've come to a realization: The law of supply and demand presupposes that buyers and sellers always look out for their own best interests. Quite frankly, I don't think that REO sellers are holding up their end of the bargain. For the most part, they are much more interested in getting rid of the property quickly than they are in getting market value for it. So they keep pricing things below the last comp, and the next guy does the same, and so on... Thus the 7-8% per quarter drop in overall values. The early numbers for this quarter would seem to indicate that we'll see prices pretty close to last quarter, but we'll have to wait and see if that holds true, and if it is a trend.
The last point I want to cover has to do with what we have coming up over the next several months. I've written ad nauseum in the past few weeks about how small our inventory has become. There's been a lot of speculation that we're going to see a big influx of foreclosures later this year, and I've been somewhat skeptical of that happening in our market.
A few weeks ago, Diane and I purchased a service that provides a very detailed and comprehensive look at foreclosure numbers anywhere in the state. When I look at what we have in our market, I'm convinced that we aren't going to see a "tidal wave" of foreclosures here anytime soon. We might get an increase over what we have now, but I doubt that we'll see a return to last year's inventory levels any time this year.
Right now, I can account for around 50 foreclosed homes in the Lompoc Valley that haven't hit the market yet. There's always going to be some backlog here for various reasons, and I don't have enough background information to know if this number has grown or shrunk over the past few months - but I can and will monitor it going forward. What I can tell you is this: If we had half of those homes shake loose and hit the market in the next two weeks (not going to happen), they'd get absorbed by the demand we have in the market today.
Looking down the line, I can identify 71 properties with unresolved Notices of Sale on them. Some of those are going to go back to the bank, but not all of them. My best guess from looking at what we have out there right now - our inventory is likely to go up into the 130-150 range this summer, and we'll have close to the same demand level that we've had for the past year. It's not going to be that bad, folks, and let me tell you something - if you're looking for a home purchase and you find the right fit for you, buy it. Don't hang around and wait for the big wave of foreclosures to see if you can get a better deal. It ain't coming.
One of the things I also pointed out was the enormous discrepancy in last year's median price between REO and Non-REO sales. As you may recall, that number was $217,500 vs. $319,000. I said at the time that I'd have to chew on it, and chew on it I did. One of my first thoughts was that there must be a big discrepancy in the types of homes that each of these market segments represents. That's true to a certain extent - if you look at our higher end homes, Mesa Oaks and the Country Club, only 1 out of the 20 homes sold in those areas last year was an REO. So that does account for part of that spread.
But when I started looking at these two segments comparing apples to apples, I still saw a very significant spread in values. I searched for sold units in North & Central Lompoc and narrowed it down to houses between 1100 to 1500 square feet, built between 1955 and 1965. This is the "bread & butter" house in this market, where I'm most likely to get enough data points to be useful. What I saw here was still pretty incredible. Non-REO homes had a median sale price of $250,000, while REO homes had a median price of $207,500. That's a 17% difference for similar properties. Granted, REO properties tend to be in worse condition overall than "normal" homes, but that can vary a lot, and condition isn't enough to account for this.
I'd been somewhat baffled for several months as to why our values had dropped as much as they did in the face of shrinking inventory and increased demand. It just completely ran counter to what we learned in Economics 101 about supply and demand. But over the past several weeks, I've come to a realization: The law of supply and demand presupposes that buyers and sellers always look out for their own best interests. Quite frankly, I don't think that REO sellers are holding up their end of the bargain. For the most part, they are much more interested in getting rid of the property quickly than they are in getting market value for it. So they keep pricing things below the last comp, and the next guy does the same, and so on... Thus the 7-8% per quarter drop in overall values. The early numbers for this quarter would seem to indicate that we'll see prices pretty close to last quarter, but we'll have to wait and see if that holds true, and if it is a trend.
The last point I want to cover has to do with what we have coming up over the next several months. I've written ad nauseum in the past few weeks about how small our inventory has become. There's been a lot of speculation that we're going to see a big influx of foreclosures later this year, and I've been somewhat skeptical of that happening in our market.
A few weeks ago, Diane and I purchased a service that provides a very detailed and comprehensive look at foreclosure numbers anywhere in the state. When I look at what we have in our market, I'm convinced that we aren't going to see a "tidal wave" of foreclosures here anytime soon. We might get an increase over what we have now, but I doubt that we'll see a return to last year's inventory levels any time this year.
Right now, I can account for around 50 foreclosed homes in the Lompoc Valley that haven't hit the market yet. There's always going to be some backlog here for various reasons, and I don't have enough background information to know if this number has grown or shrunk over the past few months - but I can and will monitor it going forward. What I can tell you is this: If we had half of those homes shake loose and hit the market in the next two weeks (not going to happen), they'd get absorbed by the demand we have in the market today.
Looking down the line, I can identify 71 properties with unresolved Notices of Sale on them. Some of those are going to go back to the bank, but not all of them. My best guess from looking at what we have out there right now - our inventory is likely to go up into the 130-150 range this summer, and we'll have close to the same demand level that we've had for the past year. It's not going to be that bad, folks, and let me tell you something - if you're looking for a home purchase and you find the right fit for you, buy it. Don't hang around and wait for the big wave of foreclosures to see if you can get a better deal. It ain't coming.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 3/9/09
Another Monday morning, another quick snapshot of market activity:
Active Listings: 102
Contingent Listings: 30
Pending Listings: 38 (22.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 12 (9.1%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.3 months of inventory this morning. It looks like we've hit a plateau on these numbers for now. The active listings are down a little from last week, but aside from that things look an awfully lot like they have for the past few weeks. I don't know how long things will remain static like this. Last year, the inventory level stayed very stable for about 10-11 months, and the only thing that changed through that time period was buyer activity. That's one of the truly interesting things about this business - there really is no "normal". Things are constantly changing, sometimes due to things that we understand, and sometimes due to things that are total mysteries.
Later this week, we're going back into some REO numbers and analysis.
Active Listings: 102
Contingent Listings: 30
Pending Listings: 38 (22.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 12 (9.1%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
We have 5.3 months of inventory this morning. It looks like we've hit a plateau on these numbers for now. The active listings are down a little from last week, but aside from that things look an awfully lot like they have for the past few weeks. I don't know how long things will remain static like this. Last year, the inventory level stayed very stable for about 10-11 months, and the only thing that changed through that time period was buyer activity. That's one of the truly interesting things about this business - there really is no "normal". Things are constantly changing, sometimes due to things that we understand, and sometimes due to things that are total mysteries.
Later this week, we're going back into some REO numbers and analysis.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Focus on South Vandenberg Village
Last week I went into my first area specific "Focus on..." post on North Vandenberg Village. So this week, it probably makes sense to follow that up with South Vandenberg Village. Not a lot of folks realize that there's a difference between the two - most people just think of it all as Vandenberg Village. From a real estate perspective, they are very distinctly different areas.
Contrasted with North Village, which was built in several various phases over a period of 35-40 years, most all of South Village went up in the 1960ish time frame up until the new construction started at Providence Landing a few years ago. When we look at South Village, we really have to separate out the new construction from the established neighborhood. At some point down the line, I'm going to do a closer look at the resale market for newer homes throughout the Lompoc Valley, but for today, I'm going to ignore Providence Landing as far as South Village is concerned, so all of the numbers I'm going to give you here will only apply to the older homes in this area.
As of today, we don't have much on the market in South Village - a whopping 3 active units, and one of those is a contingent short sale. We only have one pending sale up there, and we've had only 2 closings in the past three months. This area had been much more active up until a few months ago. We had 22 sales up there in 2008. I don't have an explanation for why things have thinned out there recently, except to say that our inventory has been shrinking quite a bit across the board.
REO's accounted for 12 of the 22 sales here in 2008, which puts it pretty much in line with the market as a whole. When you look at the sold units, it appears that home values in this area have dropped about 15-20% over the past year, and about 45% off the peak prices we saw in late 2005. Again, this is pretty close to being in line with the market as a whole, perhaps a bit better. Values haven't held quite as well as neighboring North Village, but when you consider that there are some newer homes in the mix in North Village, this isn't surprising.
I expect that what we're seeing here in terms of recent activity is probably a fluke. However, it doesn't appear that we have a lot on the radar in the neighborhood in terms of upcoming foreclosures, so we might not see a big influx of new listings up there in the near future.
Next week's "Focus on..." is going to revisit REO's in our market. Yes, I know I just did a post on that last month. Diane constantly reminds me what a short memory I seem to have these days, but I'm not that far gone yet... But we have a new tool that's giving some good insights into what's going on on that arena, and with REO's being as big a part of our market as they are, it's a topic that's probably going to be covered frequently.
Contrasted with North Village, which was built in several various phases over a period of 35-40 years, most all of South Village went up in the 1960ish time frame up until the new construction started at Providence Landing a few years ago. When we look at South Village, we really have to separate out the new construction from the established neighborhood. At some point down the line, I'm going to do a closer look at the resale market for newer homes throughout the Lompoc Valley, but for today, I'm going to ignore Providence Landing as far as South Village is concerned, so all of the numbers I'm going to give you here will only apply to the older homes in this area.
As of today, we don't have much on the market in South Village - a whopping 3 active units, and one of those is a contingent short sale. We only have one pending sale up there, and we've had only 2 closings in the past three months. This area had been much more active up until a few months ago. We had 22 sales up there in 2008. I don't have an explanation for why things have thinned out there recently, except to say that our inventory has been shrinking quite a bit across the board.
REO's accounted for 12 of the 22 sales here in 2008, which puts it pretty much in line with the market as a whole. When you look at the sold units, it appears that home values in this area have dropped about 15-20% over the past year, and about 45% off the peak prices we saw in late 2005. Again, this is pretty close to being in line with the market as a whole, perhaps a bit better. Values haven't held quite as well as neighboring North Village, but when you consider that there are some newer homes in the mix in North Village, this isn't surprising.
I expect that what we're seeing here in terms of recent activity is probably a fluke. However, it doesn't appear that we have a lot on the radar in the neighborhood in terms of upcoming foreclosures, so we might not see a big influx of new listings up there in the near future.
Next week's "Focus on..." is going to revisit REO's in our market. Yes, I know I just did a post on that last month. Diane constantly reminds me what a short memory I seem to have these days, but I'm not that far gone yet... But we have a new tool that's giving some good insights into what's going on on that arena, and with REO's being as big a part of our market as they are, it's a topic that's probably going to be covered frequently.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 3/2/09
Time again for our weekly look at market activity:
Active Listings: 107
Contingent Listings: 26
Pending Listings: 39 (22.7% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 10 (7.5%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
Not a lot of change this week. Pendings dropped off a bit more, and it appears that we have a trend toward slightly less buyer activity in the market. That might change as we head into spring and people start gearing up for summer moves. We have 5.2 months of inventory on the market this morning.
Tune in later this week for a South Vandenberg Village update, and at some point soon, I'm going to revisit REO's with some additional thoughts and insights.
Active Listings: 107
Contingent Listings: 26
Pending Listings: 39 (22.7% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 10 (7.5%)
Click here for our most recent price per square foot chart.
Not a lot of change this week. Pendings dropped off a bit more, and it appears that we have a trend toward slightly less buyer activity in the market. That might change as we head into spring and people start gearing up for summer moves. We have 5.2 months of inventory on the market this morning.
Tune in later this week for a South Vandenberg Village update, and at some point soon, I'm going to revisit REO's with some additional thoughts and insights.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
