Well, this isn't going to take long, because there isn't much to talk about. But South Vandenberg Village is back around in the rotation, so I'm going to be stubborn and cover it anyway. For some background on the area and a description of the homes I'm covering here, go check out my first post on the area.
The last time I covered this area, I remarked that we weren't just thin on inventory here, we are downright anorexic. And now I think it's gone even thinner. We have 2 active listings in the area now, one REO and one traditional seller. And actually, that "traditional" seller isn't all that traditional - it's a relocation company. Those might as well be REO's in that they are corporate owned, and this particular one has been on the market since the age of dinosaurs with a succession of listing agents and offices, priced at a level that has no chance of getting it sold.
But I digress...
In addition to both of those listings, we have one contingent listing, a short sale, and one pending, an REO. And it's not like we're lacking inventory here because everything sold - we only have one sold unit in the past three months, a traditional seller.
I really don't know to what we can attribute this extended drought in listing and sales activity. It's not the most heavily populated area in our market, but this is kind of perplexing. At any rate, with so little activity, I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions about price trends in here. I expect that it should track pretty well with the market as a whole, but we'll need more activity to really be able to say how things are going here.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday Morning Numbers 2/22/10
Monday morning rolls around again, and I roll out of bed, pour a couple of cups of black coffee down my gullet, and go pull some numbers. Who says my life isn't exciting? And here they are:
Active Listings: 78
Contingent Listings: 40
Pending Listings: 49 (29.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 6
Months of inventory: 4.2
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
We're still bouncing along at about the same level we've been at for a few weeks. It was a slower week for new listings, and this time around, only one of the six new listings was an REO, and one was a short sale. If the last couple of weeks are any indication, maybe we're going to start seeing more traditional sellers. I wouldn't count on that, but it's interesting to see that over 70% of the new listings that have come on over the past two weeks were traditional sellers. We're dealing with some very small numbers here, so I really wouldn't want to call that a trend just yet.
Later this week I'll take a look at activity in South Vandenberg Village, and next week it's probably about time for an update on REO's. Come back and check that out.
Active Listings: 78
Contingent Listings: 40
Pending Listings: 49 (29.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 6
Months of inventory: 4.2
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
We're still bouncing along at about the same level we've been at for a few weeks. It was a slower week for new listings, and this time around, only one of the six new listings was an REO, and one was a short sale. If the last couple of weeks are any indication, maybe we're going to start seeing more traditional sellers. I wouldn't count on that, but it's interesting to see that over 70% of the new listings that have come on over the past two weeks were traditional sellers. We're dealing with some very small numbers here, so I really wouldn't want to call that a trend just yet.
Later this week I'll take a look at activity in South Vandenberg Village, and next week it's probably about time for an update on REO's. Come back and check that out.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Focus On Interest Rates
Typically, I try to keep this blog to a narrow focus on real estate developments here at home. Most of us have any number of resources that we can go to for national or state news. Some of those are even reliable. Today I'm going to step outside the usual focus to share with you some data that I found that puts interest rates into a historical perspective.
When buyers start home shopping, most of them start out by thinking about the price of the homes. Then they go talk to a lender, and they figure out that they need to readjust their focus slightly from price to payment. In our line of work, I can tell you that we make a big distinction between a buyer prospect who has done some homework with a lender, and one who hasn't. The first one has a good idea of exactly what a price means to his/her payment, and the second one might not. And this is where interest rates come in.
How big a difference does an interest rate make? Well, on your run of the mill $200,000 home financed with a 3.5% down FHA loan - a pretty typical scenario in our market - a difference of a point is about $125 a month. That's significant to most of us. Interest rates can make all the difference in the world not only in what buyers can afford, but in some cases whether or not they can buy at all.
In recent years, interest rates have been very favorable. In recent months, however, they've gotten to be almost ridiculous. For a little perspective on this, I did a little looking around, and I found a good historical source for interest rates from Freddie Mac. They have numbers on 30 year fixed rate mortgages going back to 1971, complete with the average points starting in 1972. I factored in the points over the life of the loan to come up with an effective interest rate. And because I'm the geek I am, I put it on this chart. I can't help it, it's a disease.
All I can say about that data is "Yow!". Over the past 38 years, the median effective interest rate has been 8.57%. In recent months, we've been hovering around the 5% mark. This has been one of the factors that has been driving demand in our market, no doubt about it. We keep hearing that we're going to start seeing rates creep back up, and somewhere along the line, it almost has to happen to some extent. The big question is when and how much? I wish I knew.
I will say this much, though. If you've been wanting to take advantage of this market and buy something, I wouldn't hang around waiting for prices and rates to get better if I were you. What happens to your payment if rates go back up to 6%? What about 7%? And with the data we have, how preposterous does that prospect look?
When buyers start home shopping, most of them start out by thinking about the price of the homes. Then they go talk to a lender, and they figure out that they need to readjust their focus slightly from price to payment. In our line of work, I can tell you that we make a big distinction between a buyer prospect who has done some homework with a lender, and one who hasn't. The first one has a good idea of exactly what a price means to his/her payment, and the second one might not. And this is where interest rates come in.
How big a difference does an interest rate make? Well, on your run of the mill $200,000 home financed with a 3.5% down FHA loan - a pretty typical scenario in our market - a difference of a point is about $125 a month. That's significant to most of us. Interest rates can make all the difference in the world not only in what buyers can afford, but in some cases whether or not they can buy at all.
In recent years, interest rates have been very favorable. In recent months, however, they've gotten to be almost ridiculous. For a little perspective on this, I did a little looking around, and I found a good historical source for interest rates from Freddie Mac. They have numbers on 30 year fixed rate mortgages going back to 1971, complete with the average points starting in 1972. I factored in the points over the life of the loan to come up with an effective interest rate. And because I'm the geek I am, I put it on this chart. I can't help it, it's a disease.
All I can say about that data is "Yow!". Over the past 38 years, the median effective interest rate has been 8.57%. In recent months, we've been hovering around the 5% mark. This has been one of the factors that has been driving demand in our market, no doubt about it. We keep hearing that we're going to start seeing rates creep back up, and somewhere along the line, it almost has to happen to some extent. The big question is when and how much? I wish I knew.
I will say this much, though. If you've been wanting to take advantage of this market and buy something, I wouldn't hang around waiting for prices and rates to get better if I were you. What happens to your payment if rates go back up to 6%? What about 7%? And with the data we have, how preposterous does that prospect look?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Monday Morning Numbers 2/15/10
Good morning all,
I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day weekend and got to spend it with someone special. We spent the day in the office yesterday. Do I know how to show a girl a good time, or what? Hey, at least we got to be together... Let's take a look at this week's numbers:
Active Listings: 76
Contingent Listings: 39
Pending Listings: 50 (30.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 10
Months of inventory: 3.8
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Once again, no big changes this week in these numbers. It's been a little while since we had back-to-back double digit weeks in new listings. The interesting thing here is that of the 10 new listings that came on this week, only 2 were REO's and 2 were short sales. I'm not going to go back and break it down, but I'd bet it's been a long, long time since we saw 6 new traditional listings in a week.
Later this week I'm going to step outside the Lompoc focus and give you a quick look at interest rates from a historical perspective. It's probably not going to be a long post, but the chart I have on it is rather eye-opening.
I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day weekend and got to spend it with someone special. We spent the day in the office yesterday. Do I know how to show a girl a good time, or what? Hey, at least we got to be together... Let's take a look at this week's numbers:
Active Listings: 76
Contingent Listings: 39
Pending Listings: 50 (30.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 10
Months of inventory: 3.8
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Once again, no big changes this week in these numbers. It's been a little while since we had back-to-back double digit weeks in new listings. The interesting thing here is that of the 10 new listings that came on this week, only 2 were REO's and 2 were short sales. I'm not going to go back and break it down, but I'd bet it's been a long, long time since we saw 6 new traditional listings in a week.
Later this week I'm going to step outside the Lompoc focus and give you a quick look at interest rates from a historical perspective. It's probably not going to be a long post, but the chart I have on it is rather eye-opening.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Focus On North Vandenberg Village
We're back in the groove of taking a look at a neighborhood/market segment this week. North Vandenberg Village has rolled around once more, and it's an interesting set of numbers this time around. For a little background on the area and a definition of the area, take a look at the first post I did on the area last year.
Activity in this area has been on the light side in the past few months. We only have 7 active listings in the area at the moment, and none of the are REO's. Two of them are short sales, but the rest are all traditional sellers. We also have 3 contingent listings there, all short sales.
Sales activity has been somewhat slow. We only have 4 pending units in the area, 3 REO's and 1 traditional. We've had 8 sold units in the area over the past three months, 3 REO's and 5 traditional. What's conspicuously missing from these numbers? There are no pending short sales, and no closed short sales in this area in the past few months. The overall percentage of distressed listings in the area is well below the market norm.
So far, things still look reasonably flat there based on what few data points we have. I would expect that if we continue to see a relatively low percentage of distressed properties in this area, we might start to see some small amount of recovery in prices here by the end of the year.
Activity in this area has been on the light side in the past few months. We only have 7 active listings in the area at the moment, and none of the are REO's. Two of them are short sales, but the rest are all traditional sellers. We also have 3 contingent listings there, all short sales.
Sales activity has been somewhat slow. We only have 4 pending units in the area, 3 REO's and 1 traditional. We've had 8 sold units in the area over the past three months, 3 REO's and 5 traditional. What's conspicuously missing from these numbers? There are no pending short sales, and no closed short sales in this area in the past few months. The overall percentage of distressed listings in the area is well below the market norm.
So far, things still look reasonably flat there based on what few data points we have. I would expect that if we continue to see a relatively low percentage of distressed properties in this area, we might start to see some small amount of recovery in prices here by the end of the year.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Monday Morning Numbers 2/8/10
Once again this year, the game was more entertaining than the commercials. Really, was that the lamest batch of Super Bowl commercials in recent history? I'm home from a week in the desert, and happy about it. Indian Wells is a pretty town, but the whole golf vibe is lost on me. And C.A.R. business meetings aren't exactly what I'd call fun. Necessary, yes. Interesting sometimes. Fun? Not so much. Back to some sense of normalcy - let's take a look at this week's stats:
Active Listings: 73
Contingent Listings: 43
Pending Listings: 48 (29.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 11
Months of inventory: 4.0
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Active listings rebounded a little bit this week, owing to a pretty robust number of new listings on the market. Only 4 of the 11 that came on this week were REO's, so I still think that we're seeing a slowdown in those listings. The decline in listings that I've been anticipating is in large part due to what I think will be a slowdown in those listings in coming months. That might be somewhat offset by an increase in short sale listings over the same period. We've been hearing that some lenders are encouraging homeowners who are late with payments to try short sales, so that segment of the market may see a surge in activity.
Later this week I'm going to revisit activity in North Vandenberg Village. Then next week, I'll have a report on a history of interest rates that I think will be enlightening. See you then.
Active Listings: 73
Contingent Listings: 43
Pending Listings: 48 (29.3% of the inventory)
New listings: 11
Months of inventory: 4.0
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Active listings rebounded a little bit this week, owing to a pretty robust number of new listings on the market. Only 4 of the 11 that came on this week were REO's, so I still think that we're seeing a slowdown in those listings. The decline in listings that I've been anticipating is in large part due to what I think will be a slowdown in those listings in coming months. That might be somewhat offset by an increase in short sale listings over the same period. We've been hearing that some lenders are encouraging homeowners who are late with payments to try short sales, so that segment of the market may see a surge in activity.
Later this week I'm going to revisit activity in North Vandenberg Village. Then next week, I'll have a report on a history of interest rates that I think will be enlightening. See you then.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Monday Morning Numbers 2/1/10
And we've wiped out a month of this year already... Let's take a look at our market numbers for the week:
Active Listings: 65
Contingent Listings: 48
Pending Listings: 47 (29.4% of the inventory)
New listings: 6
Months of inventory: 3.9
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Remember how I've been saying that we're probably coming into a period of decreased listings? This might be the beginning of that. Our active listings dropped off sharply from this time last week. To put it in percentage terms, we dropped 14.5% of our active inventory in a week. The result of the slowdown in foreclosures in the past couple of months, and the holiday moratorium on evictions appears to be starting to show up in terms of new listings. To illustrate that point, only two of the new listings that came on last week were REO's. And it might be a little while before inventory picks up again - we had no properties in Lompoc taken back by the banks last week. None. Zero, zilch, nada.
I probably won't have a post later this week. It's time once again for me to run off to the California Association of Realtors state meetings. This time I get to go to the desert, down in Indian Wells.
Active Listings: 65
Contingent Listings: 48
Pending Listings: 47 (29.4% of the inventory)
New listings: 6
Months of inventory: 3.9
Click here for an updated price per square foot chart.
Remember how I've been saying that we're probably coming into a period of decreased listings? This might be the beginning of that. Our active listings dropped off sharply from this time last week. To put it in percentage terms, we dropped 14.5% of our active inventory in a week. The result of the slowdown in foreclosures in the past couple of months, and the holiday moratorium on evictions appears to be starting to show up in terms of new listings. To illustrate that point, only two of the new listings that came on last week were REO's. And it might be a little while before inventory picks up again - we had no properties in Lompoc taken back by the banks last week. None. Zero, zilch, nada.
I probably won't have a post later this week. It's time once again for me to run off to the California Association of Realtors state meetings. This time I get to go to the desert, down in Indian Wells.
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