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Happy New Year – A Glimpse into 2012
Forecasting: The housing market is
in uncharted waters.
The protracted economic downturn has generated a
lot of uncertainty. This is because we are in uncharted waters. Employment,
housing, interest rates, deficits, credit, inefficient governments and more are
in flux, and the U.S., Europe, China, and the rest of the world’s economies are
all intricately tied together. All have been affected and a change within one
countries economy, good or bad, has an impact on the rest.
Who could have predicted that the European
financial situation would drive mortgage interest rates in the United States to
an historical low, even as the prognosticators consensus predicted a rise in
rates? The Achilles heel in economic forecasting is that it draws its
conclusions from historical data. What happens when we have nothing to draw
from?
This is where we are today, from the federal
government to our own private finances. This lack of information puts everyone
in a position to have to exercise their best guess. Most of us think a while
when we have to come up with our best guess, sometimes aloud, to ourselves, our
families, and friends.
Enter the instant information age. One
Facebook post or tweet can go viral. Millions read it, many instantly. Because
it can be read, people give it more credence than it may deserve. (Originally it
was a communicated musing, after all.) Credibility is the foundation of
perception, and perception often becomes one’s reality. People make decisions
based on their reality. By the next business day, one thought spoken or typed
out loud can cause the global financial markets to lose hundreds of billions of
dollars.
Sound farfetched, maybe. It depends on who
is thinking out loud.
Over the last two weeks our active inventory has
been reduced by 34 homes to a total of 8,080 homes for sale. In
the past two weeks, demand, has increased by 308 pending sales to a total
of 2,528 pending sales. Our expected market time decreased from 3.65
months of inventory two weeks ago, to 3.20 months of inventory today.
The inventory of distressed properties, as a segment of the overall inventory,
decreased by 186 homes and now totals 2,990. The number of
foreclosed homes for sale, within the active distressed inventory decreased by
50 homes, and now stands at 570 for all price ranges, in all of
Orange County.
For more in depth analysis of the current Orange County housing market please continue on to the full Orange County Housing Report...
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The Orange County Market Charts include the following charts:
Active Listing Inventory, Active Listing Inventory Year Over Year, Pending Sales, Pending Sales Year Over Year, Total Pending Sales Count, Total Pending Sales Year Over Year, Closed Sales, Closed Sales Year Over Year, Market Time Months of Inventory, Market Time Year Over Year, Homes Pulled Off the Market, Off Market Year Over Year, Listings Inventory Versus Pending Sales, Listings/Pending Sales/Sales Over Time, Distressed Listings, Distressed Listing Breakdown, and Distressed Inventory Year Over Year.
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