Good morning! Hope everybody stayed cool in that "heat wave" we had for a few days. I have to tell you, as an old Midwestern transplant - y'all don't know anything about extreme weather. But I have to confess - I was doing some yard work on Saturday, and I got to a point where I just said "Enough!" and came back in the house. Living in California for 27 years has made me a wuss. Anyway - let's get some numbers for the week:
Active Listings: 82
Contingent Listings: 54
Pending Listings: 61 (30.1% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 13 (9.6%)
New listings: 9
Months of inventory: 5.0
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Our inventory level is down a bit again this week. And we had a lot of price changes last week, but that number fluctuates a lot. I report on price changes weekly, but I may take that out of the weekly numbers soon. I'll keep tracking it, but start reporting on it quarterly. I think that it's a good market indicator over a longer period, but on a weekly basis, it's just about useless.
We closed on our investment purchase last week! We've got a lot of work to do (well, let's be honest, to pay for) in the house, but we're excited about the deal we were able to get on it, and it's going to be pretty cool to see this house with a face lift. I think that unless something else interesting comes to mind, I'll work up a post on our whole investment property search and purchase later this week.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Focus On North Lompoc
We're continuing our series of area updates this week, with a refreshed look at activity in the north end of Lompoc. I first posted on this area back in April, so go check out that post for a definition of the area.
Like most areas in town, the north side of town is thin on inventory. We only have 6 active listings here today, and all but one are distressed sales (2 REO's and 3 short sales). In addition, we have 20 contingent listings (4 REO's and 15 short sales). We also have 9 pending units in the area (5 REO's and 2 short sales). This is just crazy, upside down stuff. We've had a bit more inventory under contract than active for a few months, but we're looking at almost a 5-1 ratio here.
Sales activity has been pretty steady here, with 16 sold units in the past three months. Of those, 8 were REO's, and 3 were short sales. When I looked at this area a few months ago, almost all the sales were REO's. That was kid of a fluke, and these numbers look a little closer to what we see in the market as a whole.
Looking at the sales in the area, it appears that we're tracking pretty closely to the market trend of flat prices this year for most areas. In fact, on an admittedly very small sample size, it appears that we may be seeing some increase in values here in some segments, but let's not get too excited yet. When you deal with numbers this small, strange things can happen.
See you next week when I cover... Well, I'll figure that out next week.
Like most areas in town, the north side of town is thin on inventory. We only have 6 active listings here today, and all but one are distressed sales (2 REO's and 3 short sales). In addition, we have 20 contingent listings (4 REO's and 15 short sales). We also have 9 pending units in the area (5 REO's and 2 short sales). This is just crazy, upside down stuff. We've had a bit more inventory under contract than active for a few months, but we're looking at almost a 5-1 ratio here.
Sales activity has been pretty steady here, with 16 sold units in the past three months. Of those, 8 were REO's, and 3 were short sales. When I looked at this area a few months ago, almost all the sales were REO's. That was kid of a fluke, and these numbers look a little closer to what we see in the market as a whole.
Looking at the sales in the area, it appears that we're tracking pretty closely to the market trend of flat prices this year for most areas. In fact, on an admittedly very small sample size, it appears that we may be seeing some increase in values here in some segments, but let's not get too excited yet. When you deal with numbers this small, strange things can happen.
See you next week when I cover... Well, I'll figure that out next week.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 8/24/09
Good morning once again! Time for another exciting edition of Monday Morning Numbers.
Active Listings: 89
Contingent Listings: 54
Pending Listings: 57 (28.5% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 4 (2.8%)
New listings: 5
Months of inventory: 5.4
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Most of the numbers changed slightly, but not a lot this week. Except...
Five new listings for the week? Are you kidding me? I'm guessing that this was just one of those flukes that we see now and then. If we see even a couple of weeks like that, our inventory will drop pretty quickly back into the 70's.
Later this week, I'll update North Lompoc. And if anybody is interested - our purchase should close in the next couple of days. We've had a good, responsive escrow office on it, and we would have probably closed it on time, but we've had to work on a couple of items on the title report. Even the "easy" deals seem to have a challenge or two along the way these days..
Active Listings: 89
Contingent Listings: 54
Pending Listings: 57 (28.5% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 4 (2.8%)
New listings: 5
Months of inventory: 5.4
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Most of the numbers changed slightly, but not a lot this week. Except...
Five new listings for the week? Are you kidding me? I'm guessing that this was just one of those flukes that we see now and then. If we see even a couple of weeks like that, our inventory will drop pretty quickly back into the 70's.
Later this week, I'll update North Lompoc. And if anybody is interested - our purchase should close in the next couple of days. We've had a good, responsive escrow office on it, and we would have probably closed it on time, but we've had to work on a couple of items on the title report. Even the "easy" deals seem to have a challenge or two along the way these days..
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Focus On Central Lompoc
Back into the groove of writing area-specific posts...
I first covered Central Lompoc back in April. Go have a look at that article for some specifics on what the area encompasses and a description of the homes there.
Central Lompoc is probably the most inventory-heavy area in our MLS at the moment. We have 17 active listings in this area as of today. 5 of these listings are REO's, 7 are short sales, and a surprising 5 are traditional sellers. Another oddity among the active listings in here - 5 of them are pre-1950 construction.
In addition to the active listings, we have 9 contingent listings on the market in the area. The bulk of these - 6 - are short sales, with 2 REO's and 1 traditional seller. These look a little more like the mix I would expect to see for the area, with one older (1903) house, one newer (1982), and everything else pretty much in the 1950's and 1960's.
We also have a big old pile of pending sales in the area, with 16. These are dominated by REO's, with 11, with 3 short sales and two traditional sellers,and again, we have a pretty typical mix of property ages here. And (no big shock) it's been a very active area in terms of sold units over the past three months, with 26 sales. Again, REO's have the bulk of these (18), with 5 short sales and 5 traditional sales mixed in.
Prices in the area appear to be very flat for the year, in line with the rest of the market. Considering that it appears that this area has accounted for around 30% of the sales in our MLS over the past few months, this isn't terribly surprising.
Next week I'll work on North Lompoc, and if I get some time, I'll work up a post about our experiences with trying to buy a house at the courthouse steps. That one might be entertaining...
I first covered Central Lompoc back in April. Go have a look at that article for some specifics on what the area encompasses and a description of the homes there.
Central Lompoc is probably the most inventory-heavy area in our MLS at the moment. We have 17 active listings in this area as of today. 5 of these listings are REO's, 7 are short sales, and a surprising 5 are traditional sellers. Another oddity among the active listings in here - 5 of them are pre-1950 construction.
In addition to the active listings, we have 9 contingent listings on the market in the area. The bulk of these - 6 - are short sales, with 2 REO's and 1 traditional seller. These look a little more like the mix I would expect to see for the area, with one older (1903) house, one newer (1982), and everything else pretty much in the 1950's and 1960's.
We also have a big old pile of pending sales in the area, with 16. These are dominated by REO's, with 11, with 3 short sales and two traditional sellers,and again, we have a pretty typical mix of property ages here. And (no big shock) it's been a very active area in terms of sold units over the past three months, with 26 sales. Again, REO's have the bulk of these (18), with 5 short sales and 5 traditional sales mixed in.
Prices in the area appear to be very flat for the year, in line with the rest of the market. Considering that it appears that this area has accounted for around 30% of the sales in our MLS over the past few months, this isn't terribly surprising.
Next week I'll work on North Lompoc, and if I get some time, I'll work up a post about our experiences with trying to buy a house at the courthouse steps. That one might be entertaining...
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 8/17/09
We're back! Great vacation - nice little road trip through parts of California that I'd never seen. I think that we may have found a couple of good little out of the way destination spots for 3-4 day getaways some time. It doesn't look like much has changed in the market numbers in our absence:
Active Listings: 94
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 58 (28.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 6 (4.1%)
New listings: 13
Months of inventory: 5.4
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Notice that I've moved the months of inventory into the weekly numbers above. Some weeks I forget to mention it, and in a real head slapper moment, I figured "why don't I just put it up there with the rest of the numbers?". Sometimes my forehead gets a little red from that kind of thing...
One of those pending listings is ours - in case you didn't see last week's post, we've opened escrow on an investment property. Very exciting stuff. It's a bank-owned property, and it's a little rough, but we figure that we'll have it rental ready by October 1. Anybody know someone interested in renting a good 3 bed/2 bath house in a nice South Side neighborhood?
Active Listings: 94
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 58 (28.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 6 (4.1%)
New listings: 13
Months of inventory: 5.4
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Notice that I've moved the months of inventory into the weekly numbers above. Some weeks I forget to mention it, and in a real head slapper moment, I figured "why don't I just put it up there with the rest of the numbers?". Sometimes my forehead gets a little red from that kind of thing...
One of those pending listings is ours - in case you didn't see last week's post, we've opened escrow on an investment property. Very exciting stuff. It's a bank-owned property, and it's a little rough, but we figure that we'll have it rental ready by October 1. Anybody know someone interested in renting a good 3 bed/2 bath house in a nice South Side neighborhood?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Go on - ask me...
Crazy days on the road - having a great road trip vacation. No "Focus On" post this week because, well, we're ON VACATION.
But that doesn't mean we aren't doing a little work...
One of the things that comes with working in real estate is that you're always getting questions, mostly about the market. Sometimes I think that talking about real estate is the national pastime of the Bear Republic. So anyway, for anyone who is inclined to ask me what I think about the market - here's my answer:
We're buying a house.
We got back the signed contract on an REO today, and if all goes according to plan, we'll close on it at the end of next week. It's an REO with an out of town escrow, so place your bets... In fairness, this escrow company (Freedom Escrow in Newport Beach) seems to have been on top of it so far. It could happen.
Diane & I have been looking for an investment property for about six months now, both in the normal "retail" (listed in the MLS) market and at the courthouse steps. The trustees' sales at the courthouse steps has been one of our more interesting experiences this year, and one day soon I'll post about it. But in the end, we found our investment property in the MLS.
So anyway, bottom line here - I think that there's a real good chance that we're at the bottom of the market, and we'd hate to be looking back 5-10 years from now and knowing that we could have done this and missed out. So we're putting our money where our mouth is.
We're buying a house.
But that doesn't mean we aren't doing a little work...
One of the things that comes with working in real estate is that you're always getting questions, mostly about the market. Sometimes I think that talking about real estate is the national pastime of the Bear Republic. So anyway, for anyone who is inclined to ask me what I think about the market - here's my answer:
We're buying a house.
We got back the signed contract on an REO today, and if all goes according to plan, we'll close on it at the end of next week. It's an REO with an out of town escrow, so place your bets... In fairness, this escrow company (Freedom Escrow in Newport Beach) seems to have been on top of it so far. It could happen.
Diane & I have been looking for an investment property for about six months now, both in the normal "retail" (listed in the MLS) market and at the courthouse steps. The trustees' sales at the courthouse steps has been one of our more interesting experiences this year, and one day soon I'll post about it. But in the end, we found our investment property in the MLS.
So anyway, bottom line here - I think that there's a real good chance that we're at the bottom of the market, and we'd hate to be looking back 5-10 years from now and knowing that we could have done this and missed out. So we're putting our money where our mouth is.
We're buying a house.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 8/10/09
Greetings from Santa Cruz! We're on the front end of a jaunt up the coast and across the northern swath of the Golden State. Took a nice walk this morning through a cool older residential neighborhood here. We saw something kind of interesting along the route. Seems like lots of folks here like to plant gardens in their front yards. Kinda cool - must be a local thing. Anyway - what's that got to do with Lompoc real estate? Let's look at this morning's numbers:
Active Listings: 92
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 61 (29.8% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 4 (2.8%)
New listings: 12
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Another week with some pretty similar looking numbers from the previous week. It does look like the inventory leveled off bit again, and pending listings are on the rise. And that's enough of that - we're on vacation, and Diane said to get off the #$&@ computer. Today we head up to Point Arena.
Active Listings: 92
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 61 (29.8% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 4 (2.8%)
New listings: 12
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Another week with some pretty similar looking numbers from the previous week. It does look like the inventory leveled off bit again, and pending listings are on the rise. And that's enough of that - we're on vacation, and Diane said to get off the #$&@ computer. Today we head up to Point Arena.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Focus On South Side Lompoc
Let's take a look at activity on Lompoc's South Side. I did a post on this area back in April, so check that out for a definition of this area, and a description of the homes here.
The South Side has been a pretty active area in recent months. As of this evening, we have 7 active and 4 contingent listings in this area. REO's currently have a somewhat disproportionate share of the active listings. 4 of the 7 active listings are REO's, one is a short sale, and 3 are traditional sellers. Of the 4 contingent listings, 2 each are REO's and short sales. We only have 3 pending sales here at the moment (probably soon to change with at least a couple of the contingent listings). 2 of the pending listings are REO's and the other is a traditional seller.
We've had more sales in this area over the past few months than you might expect from what has been a slower quarter for sold units in our market as a whole. We've had 12 sold units here over the past three months. To put that in perspective, we had only 7 sales here in the previous three months, which was a more active time in the overall market. Of the 12 sales in the past three months, 8 were REO's. That's a bit more than the market average, but not enough to call it a significant difference. Two were short sales, and the other two were traditional sellers.
In looking at what sold over the past few months in this area, it sure looks like we've had a lot of really rough homes selling for cheap. There was one that sold for $100,000 that was badly in need of a heck of a lot of work, to include some foundation repair. Because we've had so many of these types of sales recently, and we had so few data points in the previous period, it's hard to get a read on values in the area. I think that the trend continues to be pretty flat, and probably will remain so with the rest of our market.
There probably won't be a Focus On post next week. We're heading out for a road trip adventure - Diane & I haven't really traveled for pleasure in what feels like a really long time, so we're due for a break. I'll probably still get out a Monday Morning post, but I may have to sneak it in while the boss is in the shower...
The South Side has been a pretty active area in recent months. As of this evening, we have 7 active and 4 contingent listings in this area. REO's currently have a somewhat disproportionate share of the active listings. 4 of the 7 active listings are REO's, one is a short sale, and 3 are traditional sellers. Of the 4 contingent listings, 2 each are REO's and short sales. We only have 3 pending sales here at the moment (probably soon to change with at least a couple of the contingent listings). 2 of the pending listings are REO's and the other is a traditional seller.
We've had more sales in this area over the past few months than you might expect from what has been a slower quarter for sold units in our market as a whole. We've had 12 sold units here over the past three months. To put that in perspective, we had only 7 sales here in the previous three months, which was a more active time in the overall market. Of the 12 sales in the past three months, 8 were REO's. That's a bit more than the market average, but not enough to call it a significant difference. Two were short sales, and the other two were traditional sellers.
In looking at what sold over the past few months in this area, it sure looks like we've had a lot of really rough homes selling for cheap. There was one that sold for $100,000 that was badly in need of a heck of a lot of work, to include some foundation repair. Because we've had so many of these types of sales recently, and we had so few data points in the previous period, it's hard to get a read on values in the area. I think that the trend continues to be pretty flat, and probably will remain so with the rest of our market.
There probably won't be a Focus On post next week. We're heading out for a road trip adventure - Diane & I haven't really traveled for pleasure in what feels like a really long time, so we're due for a break. I'll probably still get out a Monday Morning post, but I may have to sneak it in while the boss is in the shower...
Monday, August 3, 2009
Monday Morning Numbers 8/3/09
Good morning, and welcome to another exciting edition of Monday Morning Numbers. I didn't get a second post out last week. I'd tell you some wild and exciting tale of alien abduction and how I had to thwart a massive invasion of Earth, but that would be mostly untrue. If it happens again this week, I'll make sure to take my laptop along. Anyway, let's take a look at what's happening in our real estate market this week:
Active Listings: 94
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 58 (28.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 9 (6.2%)
New listings: 14
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Another week looking a lot like the previous week - some very slight variation in numbers, but it looks like the trend of slightly increasing inventory has stalled for now, and a few more homes are pending than last week. We have 5.9 months of inventory this morning.
A quick update on the foreclosure front: After a couple of months of increased foreclosures, we saw the number of homes taken back by the banks drop t0 25 last month. We seem to be back in a cycle of most of the trustee sales getting postponed again. As a result, we're back down to about 53 unlisted REO properties after a slight uptick a month or so ago, and we're up to about 120 unresolved trustee sales. If that backlog keeps shrinking, we may see another sight dip in our inventory levels in the next couple of months. But at some point, most of those unresolved sales will become REO inventory, so that will boost the inventory a little while after they start going back. I keep hearing about how we're going to be up to our ears in REO's later this year. I don't think so. Maybe up to our ankles...
Anyway, check in later this week, and alien overlords willing, I'll update activity on the South Side.
Active Listings: 94
Contingent Listings: 52
Pending Listings: 58 (28.4% of the inventory)
Price changes for the past week: 9 (6.2%)
New listings: 14
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Another week looking a lot like the previous week - some very slight variation in numbers, but it looks like the trend of slightly increasing inventory has stalled for now, and a few more homes are pending than last week. We have 5.9 months of inventory this morning.
A quick update on the foreclosure front: After a couple of months of increased foreclosures, we saw the number of homes taken back by the banks drop t0 25 last month. We seem to be back in a cycle of most of the trustee sales getting postponed again. As a result, we're back down to about 53 unlisted REO properties after a slight uptick a month or so ago, and we're up to about 120 unresolved trustee sales. If that backlog keeps shrinking, we may see another sight dip in our inventory levels in the next couple of months. But at some point, most of those unresolved sales will become REO inventory, so that will boost the inventory a little while after they start going back. I keep hearing about how we're going to be up to our ears in REO's later this year. I don't think so. Maybe up to our ankles...
Anyway, check in later this week, and alien overlords willing, I'll update activity on the South Side.
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