Home Prices Fall for 2nd Month. The median price of an Orange County home fell for a second straight month in August to $633,000 while the number of houses sold continued its sharp decline from a year ago. Many sellers are opting to pull their homes off the market. In August, there were 3,121 homes pulled off the market by disgruntled sellers, compared to 1,262 a year earlier, according to data from the Aliso Viejo-based office of ReMax Real Estate Services. Source.
Panel to Address Housing Bubble. The discussion, “Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Trends in California Real Estate,” will tackle the elusive subject of whether the runup in housing prices over the past few years constitutes a “bubble” and whether the real estate market is in for a hard or a soft landing now that home sales have slowed considerably. Also slated to speak are. Robert Edelstein, real estate development professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and Christopher Thornberg, principal at Beacon Economic. The event, hosted by the Los Angeles Chapter of Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, will take place Sept. 25 at 6:30 p.m. at the Luxe Hotel in L.A. For more information, call (310) 999-3411 or visit acteva.com/go/haasla. Source.
Panic Setting In As Market Continues to Slump: Consumer Advocate Giving Mammoth Boost to Ethical Real Estate Agents & Loan Officers. The latest housing data is shattering confidence in the most seasoned industry professionals. Homebuilder Toll Brothers said the current slump in construction is the worst in 40 years. The National Association of Realtors forecast a drop in home sales of 8% in 2006, with a further decline in 2007. PMI Mortgage Insurance added to the gloom by predicting a 32.8% chance that home prices will fall in the next two years. Source.
Technology provides competitive edge. Part 3: Surviving a real estate downturn. As the housing market slows, budgets tighten, and some buyers and sellers may be clinging to unrealistic interpretations of local market conditions. Real estate agents will find themselves competing harder for clients, especially in a time when consumer Web sites are popping up everyday, giving consumers a sense of empowerment over what they do and do not know. In this four-part series, Inman News examines the effect of the housing slowdown on everyday real estate business. We've asked brokers and agents what they are doing differently with marketing now that listing times are longer, how they are keeping an edge, and how a slowdown may or may not be impacting commission rates. Source.
Zillow: Good Real Estate Idea is a Fixer. A Web site allows buyers and sellers to find value of homes without providing personal info, however data is often inaccurate and incomplete. Zillow isn't the only free, proprietary online real estate site. RealEstateABC.com offers comparable functionality with a few extra features, and similar sites are sure to emerge. Yahoo! Real Estate announced in late July that Zillow would be incorporated into its site as an added functionality tool, and at least one major real estate brokerage, Prudential California/Nevada Realty, announced the incorporation of Zillow within its own website. Source.
To believers, saint moves homes. Real estate cool-down prompts some sellers to buy into burial legend of St. Joseph. Judy Moore knew she was going to have trouble selling the home with the really steep driveway. For help, she turned not to an advertiser or a fellow real estate agent, but to someone she hadn't used since the last slowdown in the housing market: St. Joseph. She buried a figurine of the Roman Catholic saint upside down in the home's yard. And soon, sure enough, she had her sale. Source.
Real Estate Appraising: Chilled, But Not Frozen. It can be tricky to arrive at a valuation in a cooling market. Traditionally, appraisers inspect the property's physical condition, functionality and surrounding neighborhood. Then they compare that property to the comparable recent sales, making adjustments to price estimates for features that are superior or inferior. Some appraisers say the boom provided a temptation to cut corners and complete more appraisals in less time. Now, in cooling markets, the sales prices of the comparable properties may not account for the price drops some neighborhoods have seen. And those selling the homes may be throwing in incentives like cash-back rebates or electronic extras, meaning the effective sale price of the home could be considerably less than the recorded selling price. During the boom, housing was in such demand that buyers would bid each other up, past the seller's asking price. Once a highest bidder was determined, the lender for that bidder's mortgage would send an appraiser to complete a valuation on the property. The appraiser's job in that situation is to make sure the buyer isn't paying dramatically more than the home is worth, so that the lender can avoid lending more money than necessary. Klinge said he thinks the appraisers usually lined their estimates up with where the market was trending -- up. Source.
Home Price Appreciation Slackens. The Southland median rose 2.7% in August, the smallest year-over-year increase since 1999. Even the Inland Empire — one of the nation's fastest-growing economies — is no longer enjoying double-digit gains. The last time each of the six Southland counties posted single-digit increases: December 1999.
Southland home prices have been relatively flat on a month-to-month basis since March. The problem: There simply are more homes available for sale than people willing to buy them at current prices. Sales fell 25.3% to 25,628 in August, the ninth consecutive month of declines and the worst August since 1997. After six years of sizzling price appreciation that doubled Southland home values, potential buyers now appear to be collectively sitting on the sidelines. August was the first month since December 2002 that San Bernardino County, considered the most affordable local housing market, rose at a single-digit growth rate. The median price increased 6.1% to $365,000. Neighboring Riverside County's median rose 7% to $415,000. Sales in the Inland Empire fell more than 20%. Orange County remained the most expensive local region, with a median price of $633,000, a 2.6% gain from the year before. Ventura County's median rose 1% to $598,000. Sales fell 32% in Orange County and dropped 31.8% in Ventura County. Los Angeles County's median, as reported last week, rose 4.7% to $517,000. Source. ~Tina Jan~
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