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The market has been hot lately because the inventory is low.  There are only 5,880 detached, and 3,043 attached active listings in the MLS – about 38% of what it was in September 2007.

Waiting buyers are frustrated and should be jumping at new product – how are the June listings faring?

This is the chart of all the detached listings that came on the MLS in June, and the number that have gone pending.  If the market is hot, and realtors price them within 5-10% of being right, we should see a third or half of new listings selling:

Those towns are hot – there are plenty of buyers waiting, and close to half of every house listed sells right away. What about the ‘tonier’ parts of town?

Houses stand the best chance of selling when new on the market, yet SIXTY new listings have come on the MLS in Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe, and NOT ONE of them have found a buyer?

These are the preliminary numbers of detached home sales, and cost-per-sf for May. While there are some signs of relative stability, all the hub-bub about the market improving hasn’t translated down to sales increasing yet – or cost-per-sf:

That’s a 21% decrease in cost-per-sf since last May.

Here are the number of detached sales from the MLS, and average dollars-per-square-foot for April, 2005, 2008, and 2009.

WHICH AREA IS THE BEST BUY TODAY, AND WHY?

The person with the best answer will receive four tickets to tomorrow night’s Padres game vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks – Jake Peavy is scheduled to pitch!

There’s no perfect answer – but extra credit for snark!

(Carlsbad’s 92008 and 92009 were split into four zip codes after 2005)

In today’s Union-Tribune they quote nine different people about the real estate market, and the reports are remarkably similar.   Let’s give them some credit, at least they are getting closer to the truth – the lower end is hot, and the higher end is not:

San Diego County home prices remained virtually flat in March for the third straight month, with sales of entry-level homes the strongest, in the clearest sign yet that at least the market’s bottom rung may have stabilized.

The county’s median price was $285,000, unchanged from February and up $5,000 from January, MDA DataQuick reported yesterday. Sales skyrocketed to 3,020, up 43 percent from a year ago; it was the biggest increase for any March in five years.

Local buying has been dominated by low-priced foreclosure homes, which represented 51.1 percent of all resales last month, DataQuick said. It was the fourth month in a row that more than half of resales were foreclosure properties.

Prices on those discounted properties are clearly attracting heightened interest from first-time buyers and investors.   Agents such as Calvin Goad report multiple bids, often above the asking price. He recently drew nine offers on a $384,000 home in two days, with some over the $400,000 mark.

“Most of those buyers have been hanging on, trying to get the incredible deal, and the incredible deal is gone now – it was a couple months ago,” Goad said.

The only thing a stable median price might mean is that there could be more higher-end sellers who are starting to cave and actually selling their home, which would help balance the midpoint. 

Here is a link to the article:

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/16/1n16housing235122-home-prices-county-still-flat-sa/

They didn’t get my quote right though.  There were 55 houses listed for sale in Rancho Santa Fe in March, and currently there are 327 active listings.

Robert asked about houses selling without being on the MLS.

Last month there were 79 sales of SFRs in Carlsbad:

New tract houses: 11

MLS resales: 63    (some SFR sales are in the attached category in MLS)

Non-MLS sales: 5

Total: 79

All of the new-home tracts were advertised in the MLS. 

What about the five sales off the MLS grid? 

• One house that sold had a realtor sign out front, so it must have been an exclusive,
• One was a short sale that was about $100,000 under a model-match November sale nearby,
• One was a recently expired listing that closed just under the former LP, and
• Two closed at big discounts, so they were either intra-family or somebody got a great deal. 

I checked out both; the first was 3995 Syme Drive, a 3 br/2.5 ba, 2,246sf remodeled house built in 1984 with nice ocean view that closed for $477,000:

The other was 4734 Gateshead, a 5 br/3.5 ba, 2,953sf house that sold for $300,000.  The buyer told me that it had extensive water/mold damage, and he planned to spend $250,000 on repairs and improvements:

What about financing on the 70 that had data?

VA = 3%,  (2, both over $900,000!)

FHA = 16%,  with 9 of 11 funding sales over $600,000 (not possible today)

At least 20% down payment = 57%   (40)

Less than 20% down payment = 11%   (8)

Cash = 13%   (9)

Interesting to note that that 70% of the buyers have a substantial cash investment!

How much discount, based on original list price?

Sold over list price = 11%

Sold at list price = 3%

Sold 1-5% under list = 24%

Sold 6-10% under list = 15%

Sold 11-15% under list = 27%

Sold 16-20% under list = 10%

Sold 21-25% under list = 5%

Sold 26-30% under list = 3%

Sold 31% + under list = 1%

You could say that all the sales were purchased at market value – all this shows is that nearly half (46%) of the sellers had to reduce their price by more than 10% before they found a buyer.   Later I’ll do a chart that matches the amount of discount to days on market.

Oceanside sales have been red hot lately. Of the 12 REO sales we’ve closed since September 1st, EIGHT of them have sold above list price. As you’ll see below in the Oceanside stats comparing December 2008 to December 2006, their sales increased 52%, while pricing dropped 33%.

Oceanside is finding some equilibrium, because their pricing has gone down enough that sales have increased substantially. Other areas that have been stickier on price continue to see their number of sales drop.

To try to gauge the differences, I came up with the Jim Formula.

I doubled the difference in sales, and added it to the difference in pricing. For example, there were 51 more sales in Oceanside, so I doubled it to 102, and then subtracted the difference in pricing, 97, to get +5.

It probably doesn’t mean anything, it’s early this morning and the coffee is running hot. But follow how the other areas measure up, using the same formula:

December Sales of Detached Homes

Obviously those with smaller samples are skewed, but you get the idea. If your area of interest is in the top half of this list, you’ve seen prices come down enough that 2008 sales are closer to 2006 sales, when the funny money was readily available (Carmel Valley being the exception, as usual).

The official November home sales will be out shortly, and the windbags will be touting how the numbers have improved.

The total count of November closed sales of houses and condos in the MLS:
2006 = 2,192
2007 = 1,660
2008 = 2,172

But it’s the lower-end homes that are selling, especially the better-priced REOs. There is ample financing available for those who qualify, and prices have dropped 30% to 60% from the peak.

But trouble is brewing in the upper-end market.

Here are the November sales counts for properties over $800,000:

There are 1,422 active listings over $800,000 in those same areas currently, and I don’t think there’s any help coming from TARP, Obama, or any other outside intervention. It’s a slug-fest now, and only the aggressive sellers have a chance.