Boker's Blog

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 9/6/2011
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
"Sellers rush to pull homes off O.C. market”
As of September 1^st—estimates that the local market’s speed quickened 12.9% in a year as sellers quit the market in droves… Last year at this time the inventory was still growing, continuing right through September… Over the past month, the inventory has shed a total of 349 homes and now totals 10,754, dropping below the 11,000 mark and reaching levels not seen since March.” Homes listed for under a million have a market time of about 3.06 months and homes over a million dollars have a market time of about 10.96 months.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER REAL ESTATE SECTION 9/4/2011
Jonathan Lansner
“O.C. Beach homes hottest summer sellers”
In a region-by-region analysis of the Real Estate in Orange County, we find that home buying in 17 ZIP codes by the beach, is up 3%, and median selling price is at $682,500 (6.1% rise).

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 9/2/2011
Marilyn Kalfus
“Distressed homes sell at double speed”
Short sales move twice as fast as non-distressed homes. Of the 11,051 homes listed overall, 3,634 were distressed. Distressed homes represent 32.8% of the market and have only a market time of about 2.28 months compared to the market time of 4.63 months of a non-distressed property.

“Glass Half Empty” Perspective

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER REAL ESTATE SECTION 9/6/11
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
“Low-end sellers take biggest price cuts”
HousingTracker.net breaks down data for the MLS system by tracking the trends of asking prices. “From the August report we saw at the 25^th percentile—the median of the lower half of the price spectrum of local homes for sale—median selling prices down 7.5% vs. a year ago. Meanwhile at the 75^th percentile—midpoint of the upper half—median selling price was off 6.3% in year.”

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 9/2/2011
Jonathan Lansner
“O.C. Condo prices at 2-year low”
“The last time Orange County condos were cheaper were two years ago. For the 22 business days ending August 16—DataQuick’s latest numbers—the median selling price of a local condo was $265,000—off 11.7% in a year.” Even though condo prices have fallen, it has not helped sales. In fact, condo sales are down 9.4% from a year ago.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER REAL ESTATE SECTION 8/31/2011
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
“Home prices decline in 40 states”
According to Real Estate tracker CoreLogic based in Santa Ana, California, home prices have fallen in the year ending in July. At a decline of 6.1% California ranks 9^th in “worst performance among the states.” BUT when distressed properties are not included, home prices in California have only dropped .3%. “Weak overall economics and a wave of sales of distressed properties—both banks selling foreclosures and owners selling homes as ‘short sales’ at prices below their mortgage debt pressure prices.

States that rank the highest for biggest losses in July include; Nevada at 12.2%, Arizona at 11.9%, and Illinois at 10.0%. Although 40 states did show a decline West Virginia showed a increase of 14% and about 9 states showed a slight increase of about 1 to 3%.