HOME SALES are UP

PRICES ARE DOWN, BUT SALES ARE UP… The next paragraph will have the exact numbers of sales which will still be down from the previous year, but up from the previous month. The fact is sales are way up from February. March sales (the latest month available) in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties were up 18.8% from February. According once again to Dataquick, that’s still not great as the average increase from February to March for the previous 20 years has been 38%. Yet I think it’s a number worth looking at. Why? Because most brokers reported their highest monthly sales in 15 months, which means this March was a heck of a lot better than March of ’07. The current inventory levels have not only stabilized, but they have hit a neutral plateau meaning they don’t really favor sellers or buyers. According to the OC Register (April) supply is hovering at about 6.77 months, meaning if not another house was listed it would take 6.77 months to sell every home currently listed to reach 0% inventory. This is not a bad number considering the affordability index is rising monthly. In fact, it’s risen from a low of 11% at the height of the market to around 30%. That’s the number of people that can afford to buy a home at current prices. Even though the emotions of the market favor buyers and because of that supply favors buyers, activity is slowly growing. Are we out of the woods? No, let’s be realistic and truthful. But, investors are sneaking back in and there are some great deals out there. If you need to buy, you need to call us. There are not a lot of great reasons to wait because the single factor that should sway you is interest rates and they are still at near historic lows.