So Cal Housing Market Report

Posted In: Foreclosures, Home Prices, Homeowners, Housing, Real Estate Agents

Crash and burn
All the stars explode tonight
How’d you get so desperate
How’d you stay alive
Help me please
Burn the sorrow from your eyes
Oh, come on be alive again
Don’t lay down and die

-Hole, “Malibu” (1998)

I think Courtney Love best described the Southern California housing market these days. The reports coming out of there are SO BAD, I just had to talk about it. On Wednesday, the L.A. Times’ Peter Hong wrote:

The traditional spring home-buying season is off to its worst start in 20 years, data released Tuesday show, with sales so weak that foreclosures now account for more than one-third of all market activity…

The median price for a Southern California home fell below $400,000, to $385,000. Homes are now typically selling for what they fetched in April 2004, with the median price 20% below the market peak of $505,000 last year.

“…with the median price 20% below the market peak of $505,000 last year.” Truly disturbing.

With all this going on, Hong noted that So Cal homeowners are STILL living in la-la land when it comes to how much they believe their properties are worth. And by la-la, I don’t mean Los Angeles. He wrote:

Homeowners who aren’t facing foreclosure, meanwhile, often cling to outdated notions of what their properties are worth, real estate agents say.

David Emerson, a Lakewood real estate broker, said he was still able to quickly sell houses when owners priced them realistically.

The L.A. Times reporter uncovered some dismal forecasts for those who believed the worst had passed. He wrote:

Emerson also believes the worst is yet to come. “There are just too many foreclosures coming down the pike,” Emerson said.

Natalie Neith, a Beverly Hills real estate agent, has also seen a modest pickup in open-house traffic and sales recently, but like Emerson she sees more foreclosures coming…

“When I talk to sellers now, I say you need to reduce your price. You have the prospect of thousands of foreclosures coming. That’s going to be your competition,” Neith said.

California foreclosure filings were up 106% in March from a year ago, according to Irvine-based RealtyTrac on Tuesday.