After declining four out of the last five months, the Case-Shiller Index for San Diego rose in January by 0.71%. The year-over-year change was 5.1%, which is pretty hefty considering how high prices already were at the beginning of 2014.
Dave rains on the parade, as usual:
“Despite price gains, the housing market faces some difficulties. Home prices are rising roughly twice as fast as wages, putting pressure on potential homebuyers and heightening the risk that any uptick in interest rates could be a major setback,” said David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee for S&P Dow Jones Indices.
In September, Susan Rodolfi, celebrated an unusual anniversary: five years of missed mortgage payments.
She is like a ghost of the housing market’s painful past, one of thousands of Americans who have skipped years of mortgage payments and are still living in their homes.
Now a legal quirk could bring a surreal ending to her foreclosure case and many others around the country: They may get to keep their homes without ever having to pay another dime.
The reason, lawyers for homeowners will argue, is that cases have dragged on too long.
Recently improved with over $80,000 in upgrades, this 4,952sf Tuscan estate on 2.11 acres in Hacienda Santa Fe has the master suite downstairs for easy living, plus four other bedrooms and den. The backyard is ideal for kids, with a huge grass area surrounding the pool with waterfall – and you can have a horse too!
On top of today’s announcement that February pendings were up 3.1%, our local NSDCC market has kicked it up a notch lately. We had 84 new pendings last week, and 81 this week – we averaged 60 per week in February!
Click on the link below for the complete NSDCC active-inventory data:
If you have any interest in golf, or just like a good walk in the park, stop by the final round today of Kia Classic at the Aviara Golf Club in Carlsbad.
It is a challenging course, yet all but seven of the finalists are under par – and the leader, Mirim Lee, is 16-under!
We will be having open house right by the main entrance to golf, so stop by!
The single-level house at 1341 Mallard has been rejuvenated with new paint and fresh landscaping, and the price is down to $1,495,000. Open house is 12-3pm – stop by!
The market isn’t high-flying enough to call it a frenzy – and buyers are passing on anything that looks like a project. Doing improvements before going on the market is the best way to go:
Stop me if this sounds familiar: You scour MLS for the semi that will rescue you from a life in a high-rise. Mortgage pre-approval in place, you bid well above asking, because you live in Toronto and that’s how it works. The selling agent comes back and says there’s another stronger bid, and couldn’t you do a bit more? You swallow hard and cough up another $10,000, sealing the deal, and only later wondering if there really was a competing offer in the first place.
It’s tough to know how often this happens, but with interest rates still rock-bottom and bidding wars turning post-war bungalows into million-dollar properties, the Ontario government is bringing in new rules to crack down on unethical real estate agents that try to pump up housing prices with “phantom” offers.
The month of March is wrapping up next week, and we’re heading into the Easter/Spring Break period. Local buyers who might take some time off will be offset by the out-of-towners coming in for a look.
The market seems very balanced currently, and our ‘market health’ gauge is supportive.
Historically, we’ve called it a healthy market when Active Listings-to-Pendings have been at a 2:1 ratio, and here’s the count today in North SD County’s coastal region:
Actives: 781
Pendings: 440
Ratio = 1:78:1
It’s the lower end of the market that is really hot. Of the 440 pendings, 71% of them are listed under $1,500,000.
Only 37% of the actives are priced under $1,500,000!
While there has been a steady flow of new pendings, I haven’t seen many that were a surprise. I think buyers are being patient, and are hoping that there will be better offerings later – much like sellers are hoping there will be higher-payers later.
Mortgage rates are holding steady too, which means April could be the month that those buyers and sellers who are in tip-toe mode come closer together!
