I’m so glad I attended a seminar by John Altman a couple of days ago.
John has been in the real estate business for 40 yrs. and is an excellent speaker.
He also is a master at statistics.
As he started to give us some of the information he had compiled, I began to understand why I’ve been having such a tough time finding a home for my VA buyer in South Bay, San Diego County.
He said as of 07/16/09 there were 9357 "active" listings on Sandicor’s MLS. At the rate homes are selling, it would mean 3.5 mos. of inventory in San Diego County.
Approximately 10.5% of those listings are south of Hwy 94 (excluding Coronado). At the rate homes are selling in south county, it would mean only 1.25 mos. of inventory. Of those 988 homes, 868 are under the $546,250 conforming limit with 256 traditional listings, 443 short sale listings and 169 bank owned listings.
Obviously, the demand for homes is much greater than the current inventory.
One of the reasons for this is the $8000 tax credit implemented earlier this year for first time homebuyers and those not holding title to property in the last 3 yrs. This is scheduled to end 11/30/09 unless Congress extends the date.
Many people have taken advantage of amending their 2008 tax return to receive their refund sooner, although the IRS is quoting 12-20 weeks to receive it.
These facts are rather startling:
John has also been tracking the Notices of Default (NOD’s) and actual foreclosures by banks that have not been listed as of yet on the MLS. He calculates approximately 8000 homes in San Diego County are being carried on banks’ books. In other words they are sitting on piles of homes that could be offered for sale, but for one reason or another they are holding off.
Certainly one solution to our current inventory crisis would be for banks to release and list their foreclosed properties for sale. Another is for private sellers to take a chance on the market again and list their homes for sale.
Written by Erin McBratney, buyers agent for the Peter Toner Team at SanDiegoRealEstateAgent.com
» Posted by Peter
