March 2016 Orange County Real Estate Market Update
Happy Easter and Welcome Back. I’m Jeb Smith, Real Estate Broker with ReMax Terrasol here in Huntington Beach with your March 2016 Orange County Real Estate Market Update. After a slow start to the spring selling season it looks as if the market is starting to pick up steam and get back on track with our earlier expectations. As usual, we are going to discuss our local housing market and what that means for you as a Buyer or Seller in today’s market. For those of you interested in the actual market statistics, I have provided a link below.
Nationally, and especially locally, there has been a real supply issue that dates back to 2012 and this year is no different. The supply issue that I’m referring to is the supply of active homes on the market that are available for sell at any given time. We are currently off by about 38% from our historical markets meaning there are a lot less homes for Buyers to choose from and this especially rings true here in our local markets. Strong demand coupled with a low supply means that the real estate market favors sellers, not buyers. In order for this to change, our marketing times which is the the time it would take, on average, to list a home and place it under contract, would have to double and demand would have to drop and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
With that being said, our inventory has increased nearly 2% in just the past 2 weeks. The increase in the inventory is likely related to Sellers being a bit overzealous and unrealistically pricing their homes and not due to a drop in Buyer demand since buyer demand also rose nearly 3% during this same time period . Although Sellers have the slight market advantage, it looks as if buyers aren’t willing to pay more than fair market value which means that if Sellers are looking to sell quickly and for top dollar then pricing their homes correctly is still the best strategy.
How does all of this affect you as a Buyer or Seller in our local market? With extremely favorable interest rates and continuing buyer demand, we expect the market continue to move sideways to slightly up. Homes priced under $750K seem to be moving the quickest with luxury homes taking a little bit longer to sell.
As you know, all Real Estate is local, so if you are a Buyer, Seller or Investor in Today’s market and you have questions, I would love the opportunity to help guide you in the right direction. If you would like more information about me, please go to my website www.jebsmith.net or check out my other videos on YouTube. As always, I appreciate you taking the time to watch and I look forward to seeing you again next month. Make it a great day.
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