Inventory Watch

Last year the inventory stayed elevated through October as everyone was distracted by the Padres’ playoff run. Yesterday’s win was the fourth Padres victory in a row and keeps their playoff hopes alive with 12 games to go.

Can they pull it off?

If they do, it will mean the next few weeks of real estate should be fairly quiet!

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Inventory Watch

It still looks like a healthy-enough market!

The number of pending listings is probably all that matters because it means that buyers are still in the hunt.

How much longer will they keep buying before the holidays kick in? Halloween decorations are on sale!

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Inventory Watch

The late-summer rally has been incredible, and quite surprising to those who read social media. The summer surge in the number of pendings has caused the highest number of NSDCC monthly closings of the year last month – and the median sales price held up too at $2,200,000!

There were 30 other listings that cancelled or expired in the last week, which dropped the number of actives back towards the trend. It’s hard to imagine that there will be many new listings coming to market in the coming months, though the environment has been productive. We have seven in escrow!

But the talking heads will keep looking for doom everywhere:

We should experience the traditional seasonality (slowdown) of home sales and pricing in the coming months, and then everything will fire back up in February.

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Inventory Watch

A tough week – the number of active listings went up by 24, and the pendings count dropped by ten – which sounds like a bunch of escrow fallouts.

We should be facing an epidemic of escrows falling apart.

The buyers’ remorse – which has always been real and deadly – must be at extreme levels today and lately the listing agents haven’t had to save deals because everything was closing during the frenzy.

The main reason deals fall apart? The buyers felt disrespected.

They will tell you something different because we’re such a polite, cordial bunch these days. I guess some buyers might just innocently change their minds, but it’s more likely somebody offended the buyers along the way – and it could be either agent.

Get Good Help!

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Inventory Watch

The hurricane was like our real estate market. A whole lot of build up but not much real action around the coast, with the only things of note happening in the dark of night!

Link to flood photos

The Padres are cooked, and real football doesn’t start until September 10th. We should be experiencing the Last Hurrah of 2023 over the next three weeks!

This is my first use of the NSDCAR/CRMLS website, and while they are supposed to be data-sharing with the SDAR MLS, the similarities aren’t perfect. For those keeping score, the active listings are those marked as Single Family Residence, and marked No for the question, ‘Property Attached’. Included in the pendings are those marked Active Under Contract because nobody has made it clear to agents what that means.

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Inventory Watch

Potential home sellers have been believing that 2023 isn’t a good time to sell a home, and the media is feeding that perception. Our local market will probably keep fading away for the rest of the year, though let’s review my two rules of thumb about when is the best time to sell:

The Best Time To Sell A Home

  1. When you have good supportive comps around you.
  2. When no one else is selling.

Both are probably happening around you right now!

At some point, a few boomers near you could go out feet first, causing their heirs to blow into town and liquidate the estate. If you have a sense that might happen on your street, selling now before potentially lower comps happen is a smart idea. Besides, selling your home will be just as fruitful now as it will be in 2024 – how much higher can prices go up in the next six months?

Let’s go!

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Inventory Watch

The number of homes for sale between La Jolla and Carlsbad will probably decline for the rest of 2023, even though the pendings counts are as high as they have been all year.

Is the number of pendings higher because pricing is soft, and getting softer?

Generally, the list pricing is fairly steady…..of the unsold listings:

There probably won’t be a noticeable pricing dump the rest of the year – just the occasional deal – because the 2024 Spring Selling Season is only six months away. For most sellers, it’s better to wait, than dump.

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Inventory Watch


It looks like the inventory between La Jolla and Carlsbad may have peaked for 2023. After the inventory shortage we’ve experienced, it’s hard to imagine a surge of new listings in August/September.

The pendings count is at their highest point of the year! Hopefully we can eek out another few weeks of heightened activity before both the buyers and sellers shut it down for the year.

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Inventory Watch

In the past week, there were 18 FEWER new listings and 15 MORE new pendings than the week before – and boom, the mid-summer surge continued….but only for some, not all.

A good example of the current market conditions is one of the La Costa Valley 6 that we’ve been following. After four price reductions and 64 days-on-market, this became the best value available and went pending:

https://www.compass.com/app/listing/2871-vista-acedera-carlsbad-ca-92009/1299560759783040497

It typifies the struggle for home sellers. Either you can take corrective action to ensure yours is the next to sell, or you can wait. But waiting increases the days-on-market statistic, which invites lowball offers.

Last week, I spoke with a listing agent about a home that had been on the market for three months. They had eight showings in the first two weeks, and NONE since. Buyers are assuming that it’s not worth anywhere close to the list price, and they have no interest in even looking at it, let alone buying it.

Sell in the first two weeks your home is on the market when urgency is higher, or risk getting lowballed.

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Inventory Watch

In normal times, around 60% of all listings would sell. During the hottest frenzy times, it was up over 80%!

But now with the number of active listings rising like a rocket, it probably means a couple of things:

  1. The 2023 selling season is closing out.
  2. Half of the houses on the market today probably won’t sell.

While there is time for sellers and agents to adjust their price, it is unlikely they will do it soon enough, or low enough. You can see here that there hasn’t been much movement in the trends until recently:

Admittingly, this is more of a higher-end concern but even the $4,000,000+ market isn’t dead. There are 187 listings priced over $4,000,000, and 47 pendings, which is a ratio of 4:1 – which is decent!

But it looks like the Big Fadeaway is commencing.

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