When people say we live in uncertain times (in terms of the economy) they aren't kidding. In the last week I noticed Time Magazine's cover with one arrow going up and one going down. The point? That none of the brilliant minds in business can agree if we are headed for a double dip recession or if the worst is over. Last Sunday's LA Times had a feature story from a number of experts essentially agreeing that no one can predict what will happen with the stock market and the economy even though corporate profits are way up and many of the usual indicators are overwhelmingly positive. Which brings us to my favorite topic - the Santa Clarita Real Estate Market. As you can imagine, the question I am asked most often is, "Have we hit bottom?" Often my clients will TELL ME why we have or haven't. If I were to line up the 20 top agents in our valley (whom I happen to network with every Tuesday), 10 would tell you why they are sure that the worst is over; the
Neal's Blog
Buyers today have more control over the home buying experience than ever. They choose what they want to see because they have access to property listings online. Yet, very often what they see is not what they get. I get calls daily from buyers excited about listings that are neither actually listed (redfin is famous for this), or still available (taking “back up offers only” shows as “active” in their searches even though it is really in escrow). Which brings us to short sales and the market that we are in today. The purpose of writing this is to let all buyers in every price range know that short sales will make up a large portion of the homes that are available to see and they are the perfect example of “what you see may not be what you get”. In Santa Clarita today, over 40% of the “active” listings are short sales and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. In fact, I fully expect that the type of market we have today will be this way for awhile.
January 31, 2010 As we start a new decade in Real Estate I am struck by how much it has changed in the last 10 years. We often forget that even with a bubble that no one could have seen or predicted that average and median prices in Santa Clarita are still almost double what they were at the end of 1999. The big change though is in technology--never before has so much Real Estate information been available to the public, and boy do they lap it up! I have never seen so many articles, cable programs, blogs, etc.; and opinions sure can be controversial. I get it. Real Estate is a big part of the American dream and impacts huge numbers of jobs and, of course, confidence. The irony though is that with the public having more access to information than ever, there seems to be more confusion than ever. Today we have record low housing inventories (673 homes in Santa Clarita today, only 381 are not short sales), yet prices are not going up. Why? In 2009 we had 5.176 million sales
Every year in December I write to all my friends and past clients to give them my predictions about Real Estate coming into a New Year. I usually include things about interest rates, new construction, business moving into Santa Clarita and other issues that affect value. More than anything else though people want to know if the value of their home will go up or down. Sometimes it is pretty easy to predict, lately it has been incredibly hard. Lets start with the basics and then get into an issue that has become by far the biggest question mark in Real Estate-"Shadow Inventory". As I have recently reported, we currently have the lowest amount of inventory that I have ever seen in 19 years of selling Real Estate. In a Valley of over 200,000 people we have UNDER 500 homes for sale. New listings in the lower price ranges are often met with multiple offers. If we weren't hearing every day about unemployment, rising notice of defaults, appraisal challenges, and coming off of the
A few months ago I suggested that price stability would be the key to solving a lot of the Real Estate problems that we face. I also said that foreclosures and short sales were the single biggest reason why prices have fallen so much-no big stretch there. I have also pointed out that currently the number of foreclosures is actually only a third of what it was a year ago, with the supposed "wave of foreclosures" never occuring, and according to many experts unlikely to ever occur. Our inventory in Santa Clarita today is less than 480 homes-the lowest it has ever been in my 19 years of selling real estate. Prices SHOULD be going up, but aren't unless the property is under $450,000, and only then in specific situations. Now, let's be really honest with each other. EVERYONE wants to know when prices will stabilize and go up and EVERYONE wants to be right and say "I told you so". It's human nature and a lot of money is potentially at stake-for buyers, sellers and lenders. Real Estate
About 18 months ago I wrote about how an avalanche of short sales had come on the market, frustrating sellers, buyers and lenders attempting to process them. My message at the time was--basically--they take forever, they are rarely successful and lenders don't seem to know what to do with them or how to answer homeowners questions about tax implications, etc. I summarized for buyers: "foreclosures good, short sales bad". For sellers I advised consulting your tax and legal professional, I'll try to help you if I can and I likely can't answer your questions. As an agent, I really didn't want to have anything to do with them, and neither did many other realtors. We wouldn't list them if there was more than one loan, and we wouldn't show and sell them because the foreclosures were plentiful and the response time was so much quicker. Well, what a difference the last 18 months have made! Let's start with what I believe are a few important, "We all don't agree on everything that is happening