Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Actives/Pendings
Is the ‘spring selling season’ getting started?
It depends where you look. The areas that have been hard hit by foreclosures and have seen rapid depreciation have been selling like hot cakes (San Marcos, Oceanside and Vista), and the higher-end areas are loaded with sellers that “aren’t going to give them away”.
Here are the areas ranked by the lowest ratio of actives to pendings, plus their number of new active listings since February 1st/number of new pendings since February 1st:
Detached Actives/Pendings
| Town or Area | Zip Code | # of Act/Pend | A/P Ratio | Act/Pend since Feb 1st |
| San Mrcs N. | 92069 | 105/82 | 1.28 | |
| Oceanside | 54-58 | 520/310 | 1.68 | |
| RP | 92129 | 75/39 | 1.92 | |
| San Mrcs S. | 92078 | 154/75 | 2.05 | |
| Vista | 81-83 | 363/172 | 2.11 | |
| Sorrento | 92121 | 11/4 | 2.75 | |
| Poway | 92064 | 156/56 | 2.79 | |
| West RB | 92127 | 177/53 | 3.34 | |
| Carlsbad NE | 92010 | 40/11 | 3.64 | |
| Carlsbad SW | 92011 | 91/25 | 3.64 | |
| RB | 92128 | 139/37 | 3.76 | |
| Carlsbad NW | 92008 | 80/21 | 3.81 | |
| Carlsbad SE | 92009 | 166/43 | 3.86 | |
| Scripps Rch | 92131 | 101/26 | 3.88 | |
| Encinitas | 92024 | 193/24 | 5.68 | |
| Carmel Vly | 92130 | 183/32 | 5.72 | |
| DT condos | 92101 | 627/105 | 5.97 | |
| La Jolla | 92037 | 248/24 | 10.33 | |
| RSF | 92037 | 263/23 | 11.43 | |
| Del Mar | 92014 | 138/12 | 11.50 | |
| RSF | 92091 | 28/2 | 14.00 | |
| Solana Bch | 92075 | 57/0 | 57.00 |
In the 2000-2004 time frame, the ratio was around 2:1, with the hottest times as low as 1:1.
Score Guide
0-3 Hot market
3-4 Regular market
4-5 Market in trouble
5-7 Too many choices
7+ Freefall
Posted on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 at 12:25 PM in Actives/Pendings | 20 Comments » | 
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Pressure getting to Carmel Valley?
The Blur | February 15th, 2009 at 12:34 pmRolling on the floor laughing at Del Mar and Solana Beach. Sellers are clueless about price.
W.C. Varones | February 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pmHere’s why nobody is buying in Del Mar: instant negative equity.
Guy buys a 3/2 with 1527 sqft for $820,000 in December. At $537/sqft, it’s not cheap, but you get to say you live in Del Mar, right?
But wait ’til you meet your new neighbors. A month later, somebody buys a 5/2.5 with 2646 sqft two doors down for $756,500. That’s $286/sqft.
Dude, if you haven’t unpacked your things, I’d just hand the keys over to the bank right now.
W.C. Varones | February 15th, 2009 at 2:07 pmSo the market’s all better except the beaches?
And, not to pick nits, but the S.B ratio is actually infinity. Now that’s a free fall. Its like calculus in High School “The limit approaches infinity.”
Former RB Resident | February 15th, 2009 at 2:47 pmI have 30 minutes to get to the Del Mar Farmer’s market and I’ll drive by the former Del Mar Workout – I still have their recent mailing for personal training and membership on my desk (somewhere). I remember some comparing Carmel Valley to Silicon Valley. Well, Silicon Valley in 2008 had the largest increase in foreclosure at 239 percent. I’ve got three REO listings within a 1/4 radius in 92024 and two homes were vacant the past 9 – 13 mos. The last house was being rented out until yours truly informed the tenant he was padding the owners pocket while the properties was in pre-foreclosure. In other news, local RE extraordinaire seems to have a lock up on the neighborhood, but one of the homes after being up for sale for over 9 mos, now has a For Rent sign on the front yard. She is also representing her neighbor across the street and this is the second attempt at selling 1.5 yrs after the property was removed from MLS. What, is she trying to be nice to the neighbors by listing high? She is only hurting them and prolonging this mess. Let this buzz saw cut hard and deep. Now back to looking for a job =P
3clicks from da Beach | February 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pmSilicon Valley is still being stubborn. There’s a lot of foreclosures going on, but almost all of them are in East San Jose. (That’s the closest thing we have to “the ‘hood” in Silicon Valley.)
Any kind of house that you wouldn’t be embarassed to show off to your friends still starts at around $700K, even in mediocore neighborhoods like Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.
The good news is this: the situation in Silicon Valley is changing fast. The layoffs are finally here, and people are losing jobs like crazy. I’m looking forward to falling prices of “desireable” houses in the 12-24 months. The crash is coming but it’s not quite here yet.
greenlander | February 15th, 2009 at 4:16 pmHere’s some more stats:
no bubble here | February 15th, 2009 at 4:53 pmhttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/images/090214mortgages.jpg
Greenlander,
I’m a Silicon Valley transplant. I was in heaven when I moved to N. County and saw what my money could get here compared to the nicer areas in San Jose. This is still a much better place to live.
3clicks from da Beach | February 15th, 2009 at 6:20 pmHomeowners in Silicon Valley are used to seeing home prices inflate and deflate on a roughly 10-year business cycle. This bubble was different from past ones only in that it was based on real estate smoke and mirrors and not on people chasing after the next big thing in tech. People who were in their houses before it started watched their values skyrocket and just said, “here we go again,” and tore up the daily flood of second mortgage junk mail while the newbies were frantically sucking cash out with equity lines. When the smoke clears the streets will be littered with the the “for sale” signs of the newbies, but most of the “old hands” will still be there.
GeneK | February 15th, 2009 at 6:36 pmLet me play the devil’s advocate for a moment.
From seller’s perspective, the score should be reversed. 7+ is not free fall. It is hot market.
Eric Chang | February 15th, 2009 at 6:53 pm“We are so hot that we don’t need to lower our price” kind of hot.
Is it me or does every mania/pipe dream/bubble gets its’ start in California? The gold rush, Hollywood, dot com, housing, etc.
no bubble here | February 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pmYes, CA is on the leading edge of a lot of new ideas, both successful and unsuccessful.
GeneK | February 15th, 2009 at 8:54 pmCR ran a story about RE in Dubai. Yup, California, been there done that.
3clicks from da Beach | February 15th, 2009 at 9:34 pm@greenlander – I’ve lived in 95118 (San Jose, south of Willow Glen) for nearly 5 years now. Houses that were selling for $650-$675K at the peak are now down to about $399K and dropping fast. This is a good neighborhood and an easy drive to Costco and the mall…popular with families. But there are a ton of foreclosures and more come on the market every month.
I think there are plenty of good places in the Valley that are now under $700K. But I also think you’d have to be a fool to buy now since prices are still dropping double digit percentages every year.
-Erica
Erica Douglass | February 15th, 2009 at 10:38 pm(San Jose -> San Diego June 2009)
I lived and/or worked in Silicon Valley for almost 30 years before moving south t0 SD County. Willow Glen was always one of those communities that weathered downturns well, with many longtime residents staying put and would-be buyers on waiting lists for existing homeowners to retire or pass away, but just beyond the boundaries of the WGNA homes in the rest of that part of SJ were regarded as if they had a smell.
I wonder how many longtimers in WG cashed out and headed for cheaper retirement places during the bubble…
GeneK | February 16th, 2009 at 9:35 amlol, San Jose Reunion on a blog. I know San Jose and surrounding neighborhoods intimately including the Dry Creek area near WG. SV is modeling San Diego albeit a later. Here is a link to a 6 mos old Forbes article on America’s Most Overprices ZIP Codes. Willow Glen is the first neighborhood listed. http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/29/overpriced-zips-homes-forbeslife-cx_mw_0729realestate.html
3clicks from da Beach | February 16th, 2009 at 2:32 pmAs I recall, one reason why WG was always so pricey was that there were very few homes available for sale at any given time. But the fact that those homes that did sell in the bubble went for astronomically high prices doesn’t tell us how many sold, and JtR probably doesn’t track northern CA. It would be interesting to know how many underwater mortgages there are up there now vs oldtimers who will shrug and ask “so how much did we gain and lose this time?”
GeneK | February 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pmOne thing about living in San Diego is I get to live inside the tornado before anyone else. I have a lot of friends and family in the Bay Area and they don’t know what is coming. Some try and justify their local schools and median income of their neighbors will keep the prices high. I’ve seen this before – inside the tornado.
3clicks from da Beach | February 16th, 2009 at 4:41 pmAnyone who’s been a homeowner there for more than 20 years (or who took the time to research things that far back) should know the rollercoaster experience well. Relative newbies try to tell you the prices won’t fall; everyone else just tries to guess how far down they’ll go this time.
GeneK | February 16th, 2009 at 5:03 pmI have friends in Bird Rock who say exactly the same thing. They’ve been there maybe 30 years or so and could list off for me the downturns they’d seen and how much the house value dropped during each one. That whole “real estate near the coast never goes down” mantra was like a pickup line in a cheap bar, it was just the real estate agent trying to get into your pants.
Dwip | February 16th, 2009 at 6:37 pm