The good news is, currently, the economy and jobs are strong and banks are still lending.
So why is the real state market slowing down?
One word – and that’s PRICE.
The price of your property in today’s market tells the story.
It determines whether a property sells in 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years.
In fact, we are still seeing record closings occur if a property is priced correctly.
However, a home listed in January or February that sold in the first 30 days is currently for 2 months or longer – but if priced correctly, it could take only a few weeks to sell.
According to the website ManageCasa.com:
Greater Los Angeles home prices rose about $16k on average MTM and $50k YoY and Bay Area home prices rose $62,000 MTM. San Mateo saw the sharpest price drops losing almost 10% MTM. Moterey, Fresno, El Dorado, and Plumas saw the biggest price rises month to month (Car.org stats).
Listings in California rose 7.8% from last year to 52,372 homes for sale currently. There are 9200 listings in Los Angeles, up 1.2% from last year. San Diego has the biggest growth in listings up 14.8% to 5200 listings, San Bernardino up 23% to 3545 listings, and Sacramento is up 24.8% to 2100 listings. 58% of all homes are listed above $500,000.
Even though inventory is low, buyers are still taking control. Most are not willing to over pay for a property or pay over listed asking price.
So how does the future of the market look? Well, that’s hard to predict however, historically speaking, if the economy and jobs stay strong and prices come down, the housing market will follow suit.
ManageCasa.com had this to say about the future of the market:
“And this state’s housing market dynamics are so complex, and political, that few real estate experts can reliably predict whether prices will rise and whether you should buy, or if this is the ideal time to sell your house.”
Californians are voting in November on Prop 5 and Prop 10. Both of which will have a lot to do with the future of the real estate market as well.
Voters need to accomplish a YES for Prop 5 and a NO for Prop 10 to secure a better future for California and allow the state to build new development and drive down the cost by raising the inventory.
The Short Term Rental market is feeling the squeeze with regulations that are currently being put into place both locally and nationally, and is already showing signs of adding more inventory to the market with “hosts” selling properties because of an oversaturated vacation rentals market.
STR regulations that are not producing the profits the owners were used to seeing in the last 5-10 years and this turn in the STR market is allowing more housing to be available for sale as well as more inventory for long term rentals.
It will be interesting to see what the rest of 2018 holds for the real estate market and I will be updating as more information becomes available.
Article: Douglas Elliman Real Estate, 2018
