Orange County Housing Report
September 7, 2011
Orange County Real Estate |
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Orange County Housing Report Archives
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The Fall Market has arrived.....
In contradiction to our current
temperatures, this past Labor Day weekend marked the official beginning of the
transition into the fall housing market for Orange County. And in keeping with
the fall market, demand has begun to slow and the inventory is declining.
Housing Demand:
Demand declined by 5% over the past two weeks.
Demand, the number of new pending sales over the prior month,
has decreased by 145 pending sales in the past two weeks, and now totals 3,049
pending sales. There are 156 more pending sales today compared to one year ago,
5% better. This will likely translate to higher sales year over year as they
reported over the next couple of months.
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The Active Listing Inventory: The
active listing inventory has been reduced by 349 homes.
As more homeowners realize that the best time of the year to sell has now
passed, they will remove their homes from the market and the inventory of homes
for sale will continue to decline. Last year at this time, the inventory was
still growing and it continued to grow through September. This was due, in large
part, to market anomalies; anomalies formed by artificial market cycle timing,
which in turn was caused by the federal and state first time buyer’s tax
credits. These anomalies do not exist this year. Over the past month, the
inventory has been reduced by a total of 349 homes and now totals 10,754. In the
last two weeks alone, the inventory was reduced by 297 homes, the largest
reduction this year to date. Last year there were 963 more homes on the market
compared to today. This trend will continue through the end of the year.
The Distressed Market:
The distressed inventory is little changed.
The active distressed inventory decreased by four homes in the past two weeks
and now totals 3,630. The inventory of foreclosed homes for sale increased by 6
homes in the past two weeks and now totals 705 for all of Orange County, with an
expected market time of 1.77 months, a very HOT seller’s market. There’s
tremendous competition for foreclosed properties. Many buyers want to work a
deal on a foreclosure and there aren’t that many on the market. The short sale
inventory decreased by 10 homes in the last two weeks and now totals 2,925,
representing 27% of all active listings in Orange County. The expected market
time for short sales is 2.5 months, also very hot. For the remainder of the
year, the distressed inventory of homes for sale will likely remain much the
same.
Data Source: Steven Thomas, Broker, and SoCalMLS.
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