Real estate professionals in the know, understand the scarcity of homes available, the lack of demand and the dwindling sales - even though most listed homes are selling quickly and values are rising. This has been referred to as A Housing Cold Front for a number of reasons, including some of the lowest temperatures experienced in Southern California over the summer in more than 40 years. The rest of the country had really hot temperatures, but sweatshirts were the norm in San Diego. Similarly, the housing market seems to have cooled here too.
Looking at statistics, the Inventory (number of available homes for sale) has been at an all-time low. This seems to be due to the number of homeowners who have a mortgage with a fixed rate at or below 5%. Year over year, Inventory is down a whopping 53%! Meanwhile, Demand (measured by the number of new pending sales) has been squeezed by super-high mortgage rates - it's all relative, by the way - and a lack of available homes. Demand is at its lowest level in many years - since 2012 at least. Year over year, Demand is down 18%! What does all this mean? Well, it translates into far fewer Closed Sales over the first 7 months of 2023, a full 29% lower year over year.
All of this data shows a real impact on expected market times and the Luxury Market (homes between $1.5M and $4M+). This segment makes up approximately 18% of the market and the amount of Expected Market Time has decreased, year over year. So, if your home falls into this category and life has changed indicating it is time to move, now is actually a much better time to sell than last yaer.
While we all wait for lower interest rates, it is going to take a while to see the inventory increase. There ARE still opportunities for both sellers and buyers and real estate professionals like Dawn Leahy understand the market and how to navigate a successful sale or purchase in today's 'cool' climate. Reach out for more information: [email protected]
