Holy cow – it’s December! The Spring Selling Season starts on January 4th – just 33 days from now!
It will be here before we know it!
The number of active listings is dropping fast now, and is getting closer to last year’s count (373 vs 340). There were 452 actives just two weeks ago, so those that have cancelled have to be planning a comeback in 2025.
How has the pricing of the active (unsold) listings fared this year?
As of August 17th, home sellers are not required to pay the buyer-agent’s commission. Listing agents are forbidden from mentioning any compensation being offered to the buyer-agents in the active listings, but the CRMLS requires that the amount that was paid is posted in the listing at closing.
CRMLS runs the MLS for north county. Agents can also belong to the San Diego Association of Realtors which does not require posting of the buyer-agent commission paid.
I’m adjusting the timing to show these reports on a monthly basis so today’s data is for the 201 sales between October 16th and November 30th. There were 83 of the 201 who posted the commission paid to the buyer-agents by the seller. We can’t assume that the other 118 sellers (201-83) didn’t pay a commission because reporting isn’t required.
I haven’t heard of any buyers yet who got stuck having to pay their buyer-agent because the seller refused to pay. Undoubtably, there are buyer-agents who were paid a partial fee by the seller and then the buyer made up the difference – that’s the intent of the buyer-broker agreement being required now.
These are the reported commissions paid to the buyer-agents between La Jolla and Carlsbad:
Erosion is underway. It’s because some agents are weak and desperate, as I mentioned in April, and the buzz in the realtor community is that agents are quiting en masse. I’ll be nice and call it ‘retiring’. So those buyers who want an agent who charges less can certainly find them – and they will get the quality of service that they deserve.
But virtually all of the sellers are paying some commission to the buyer-agent, and about half are paying more than 2%.
This isn’t the world we wanted. This isn’t the world we asked for. This is what 12 jurors in Missouri thought you deserved (as did the attorneys who charged $100,000,000+ for prep work and a week in court).
Can you imagine living oceanfront and somehow they build condos right in front of you?
Monaco’s new district of Mareterra officially opens next month with some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Condos and villas designed by Renzo Piano, Tadao Ando and Lord Norman Foster built on new land created and claimed from the sea: pricing will go over $11,000/sf. Almost 100,000sf of solar panels, heat pumps to power all heating and cooling mechanisms, captured rainwater to irrigate plants and 1,000 newly planted trees are some of the eco-friendly features. And the area is income tax free too….
With a holiday weekend in full swing, let’s take another look at Tom’s old Victorian remodel in Grant Hill that we sold for $499,000 (full price) in December, 2011.
I do this blog mostly to educate myself about the current market conditions, and I figure that I might as well publish the information I find for all to see.
Including the bots.
With artificial intelligence scanning the internet for new data every minute, the bots may swing by here on occasion. How much of the audience here are real people, and how many are bots? It would be entertaining to know the answer – does anyone know?
The New Users are a big part of the audience:
Do the bots use mobile?
The bubbleinfo audience is mostly from America but the bots are probably located everywhere?
There isn’t much I can do about it. This blog is copywritten but I’d only chase down a violator if they were really offensive. If the AI bots copy everything here and use it to educate others about real estate, I’d live with that. There is a lot to copy:
We are eternally grateful for all the generous support of Mama’s Kitchen. This year we distributed 92 pies and had another $1,700 in contributions that will enable Mama’s to provide about 1,740 medically-tailored meals to the critically ill in San Diego!
Money will fix everything that’s wrong here – this listed for $1,800,000, and after a couple of false starts, it was sold by the estate of the original owner from 1978 to an investor for $1,685,000:
It’s just one example but how about this – it’s also our fifth sale since election day. An old guy once told me, “The market is as hot as you want it to be!”
The year-end slide of the local non-seasonally-adjusted Case-Shiller Index looks like it will last twice as long this year. In 2023, it was a relatively-brief three months, but this year the pricing turned in mid-summer.
Expect the same result in 2025 – the prime properties will fly off the market at premium prices and the junkers, OPTs, bad locations, and poorly-presented homes will languish through the second half of the year as they get picked over by the bargain hunters.
San Diego Case-Shiller Index, Non-Seasonally-Adjusted
After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a month-over-month increase of 0.3%, while the 20-City and 10-City Composite reported monthly rises of 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively.
“Home price growth stalled in the third quarter, after a steady start to 2024,” says Brian D. Luke, CFA, Head of Commodities, Real & Digital Assets. “The slight downtick could be attributed to technical factors as the seasonally adjusted figures boasted a 16th consecutive all-time high.
“We continue to see above-trend price growth in the Northeast and Midwest, growing 5.7% and 5.4%, respectively, led by New York, Cleveland, and Chicago,” Luke continued. “The Big Apple has taken the top spot for five consecutive months, pushing the region ahead of all others since August 2023. The South region reported its slowest growth in over a year, rising 2.8%, barely above current inflation levels.”
Sellers are starting to cancel for the holidays….especially on the higher-end. But I get the feeling they will be back in 2025 – especially if the pendings count keeps rising!
There have been 97 closings this month (106 last November), and they look healthy compared to last year:
Median Sales Price: $2,402,000 (Last November was $2,150,000)
Average Cost-Per-SF: $1,011/sf ($956/sf)
Median Cost-Per-SF: $877/sf ($801/sf)
The economy is in good shape, rates might come down a little, and there will be quite a few more homes for sale next year. I think we’ll have a frenzy-like experience in early 2025!
