Susie says the Boise market is on fire, Noodle said that every house in North Phoenix sells in 3-4 days, home prices in Austin are similar to what they are here (according to one buyer) and even Kayla is seeing multiple offers again in Manhattan!
The potential sellers here who want to list their house for sale so they can leave the state have to be concerned about buying their replacement home, if they haven’t bought one yet.
How many will give up and say, “heck, it’s better here anyway”, and pack it in, instead?
Will a surge of supply over the next 3-4 months – when we need it the most – be stymied because of the difficulty with buying a home elsewhere?
As crazy as it is right now, it could get crazier! It probably will!
I have recently stumbled upon your blog and find it very interesting as I am an appraiser in San Diego. I wonder if anyone has considered that the low inventory levels are in part because home prices are going up so fast why would anyone want to sell something that is going to be worth 10K, 20K, 50K more within just months. For example my home according to Zillow is up 22K in the last 30 days. Something else to consider that I have not seen mentioned….
Are sellers paying attention that closely? If so, then you’re right – it’s possible. Add that extra supply to the post-covid/Prop-19/usual-spring listings and there could be a real surge. But the worst thing that will happen is there will be 3-4 houses for sale in your neighborhood, instead of one or two.
Do sellers risk it? Most are already making $200,000 to $1,000,000+ profit……are they going to purposely hold out in hopes of picking up an extra $50,000? Maybe, but I’d guess that when and where they are moving probably plays a bigger role in their decision-making.
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Sellers are indeed holding back for some reason.
In the first nine days of March last year we had 148 new listings between La Jolla and Carlsbad, and so far we’ve only had 90 this year. More will be added to that nine-day total this week, but we’re still well under where we’ve been in previous years. March is when the inventory really picks up, historically:
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The Frenzy of 2013 was red-hot for about a year. If the same happens this time, it means the market should flatten out by July as rates increase and buyer exhaustion sets in.
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The bump in rates over the last two weeks just threw gasoline on the fire for those who could find a house to buy. But an extended run-up – especially if we get to 4% – should cool things off.
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I have two closings with buyers this week. One paid $135,000 over list, and the other paid $100,000 over.
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Over the weekend, I had buyers make a highest-and-best offer that was $207,000 over list….and lost.
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There is virtually no transparency – just take your shot and pray. Don’t think, and don’t blink!
No surprise here, given what we see in the market today.
But interesting that 2021 is off to 2x the start we had last year – which was pre-covid! New listings are down 20% to 25% while twice as many people are looking!
The NYT has another article lamenting the drop in the number of homes for sale, and offered some reasons, like covid reluctance, sellers skittish about finding their next home, forbearance relief, the lack of building new homes, and people keeping their old home as an investment property when they buy a new one.
But who cares about inventory when we’re having MORE SALES THAN EVER.
It’s true that the number of new listings this year is about 23% behind where it was last year at this time.
The other day I compared just to 2020, but here’s a look at the last ten years:
NSDCC Closed Sales Jan 1 – Feb 15
Year
# of Sales
Median Sales Price
2011
158
$810,500
2012
153
$749,000
2013
197
$845,000
2014
261
$1,007,500
2015
252
$1,200,000
2016
253
$1,125,000
2017
260
$1,200,000
2018
231
$1,300,000
2019
242
$1,288,000
2020
254
$1,394,775
2021
299
$1,695,000
% Change, YoY
+18%
+22%
We haven’t had this big of a jump in number of sales AND median sales price to start the year since the Frenzy of 2013 bled into early 2014 when we had a 32% increase in sales and +19% in median sales price. Back in 2004, we had a 26% increase in the median sales price (from $635,000 to $799,000), but the number of sales dropped from 253 to 209.
This is the new reality – more people chasing fewer homes for sale.
Buyers who might think we’re going to get a pullback because rates have gone up are going to get a good lesson on who’s in charge here. Sellers don’t care about rate hikes, lack of inventory, or your lease expiring. They just want their money, and if they don’t get it today, they will wait until they do.
This morning we have more homes in escrow than we have for sale!
NSDCC Detached-Home Listings
Listing Status
# of Listings
Median List Price
Active
352
$3,950,000
Pending
353
$1,925,000
Once upon a time I was discussing the actives/pendings relationship with local agent Peter B. He agreed that a 2:1 ratio of actives to pendings was a sign of a healthy market. If 2:1 was healthy, what is 1:1?
One thing that’s happening is that the action is rising into the upper price ranges. Today we have 94 homes in escrow that are priced over $3,000,000, which I doubt we’ve ever had before.
If we don’t see a surge of more listings, the pendings could extend its lead in the coming days/weeks!
Historically the market has felt healthy and balanced when we’ve had a 2:1 ratio of actives vs. pendings.
Remember when the Ranch was 10:1 for years? Now look at the market – especially on the lower-end:
NSDCC Actives and Pendings
Town or Area
Zip Code
Actives
Pendings
Cardiff
92007
11
16
NW Carlsbad
92008
17
19
SE Carlsbad
92009
9
38
NE Carlsbad
92010
1
12
SW Carlsbad
92011
2
17
Carmel Valley
92130
26
43
Del Mar
92014
43
13
Encinitas
92024
39
45
La Jolla
92037
101
46
RSF
92067
96
35
Solana Beach
92075
11
10
NSDCC
All Above
356
294
Carlsbad, a town of 110,000+ people, has 29 houses for sale?
It’s probably going to get crazier too as the traditional selling season opens up and we see a few more listings trickle out. It would take a flood of new listings to cause the market to slow down now.
Either we are undervalued, or we’re getting more popular….and maybe both!
The price of a San Diego home could increase by more than 8 percent this year, more than anywhere else in the nation, according to a forecast released Tuesday.
Real estate analysts CoreLogic said the price of a single-family home in San Diego County will increase 8.3 percent from November 2020 to November 2021. That means the median price of house in San Diego could be around $776,000 by the end of the year.
CoreLogic said main reason is a lack of homes for sale that will push up prices as buyers fight it out. A secondary factor is income growth for highly skilled positions in San Diego County.
It isn’t out of the ordinary for San Diego homes to increase a lot in a year — in fact, single-family homes here were up 9.5 percent last year — but the forecast is noteworthy because CoreLogic predicts most markets will see price appreciation slow in most markets.
The only regions that the real estate analysts say will come close to climbing as much as San Diego will be: Miami, predicted to increase 3.2 percent; Los Angeles, up 3.2 percent; and Washington, D.C., up 2.9 percent. CoreLogic said the total national increase should be around 2.5 percent.
“San Diego is just one of those markets that has had a lot of income growth and not enough supply to meet demand,” said Selma Hepp, CoreLogic deputy chief economist.
She said San Diego is an example of what has been seen a lot across the nation: High-wage workers who have been able to work from home have seen fortunes increase during the pandemic while low-wage workers lost income because their jobs were among the first shuttered during shutdowns.
“Income inequality is being exacerbated by all of this,” Hepp said.
This home looks great on paper. It’s a single-level 3,057sf home on an 0.39-acre lot in a secluded part of Encinitas, listed for $1,600,000. It drew a crowd too – the agent had appointments to show on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and was fully booked for three days (I got the last appointment on Sunday afternoon, and there were still a few parties milling around then).
By the time we got there, she already had multiple offers.
But it closed under list price at $1,595,500.
Do some forensic viewing and see if you can tell why it didn’t sell for more:
