Sunday, June 15, 2008

Remax: OC First Market to Recover from Housing Crash?


Inland News reports from the C.A.R. that Orange County will likely be the first California locale to exit the housing slump.

Steve Thomas of ReMax in Aliso Viejo, CA is saying the same thing on the John Lansner Blog today. Demand for homes in Orange County is at it's highest level since 2005 as over 3,000 homes have recently been placed in pending escrow. Mr. Thomas also claims that "active" inventory of for sale homes in Orange County has declined below 15,000 for the first time since January 2008.

A sign that the Orange County market is turning around?

Perhaps.

I noticed that the Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking Website, which looks at data from both ZipRealty and DataQuick sources indicates (as of 31 May 2008) approximately 17,000 homes for sales in Orange County, not 15,000.

I checked ZipRealty today (Sunday, June 15, 2008) for all homes available for sales in all Orange County communities and found 16,668 homes for sale.

While I'm as pleased as the next guy to see pent up housing demand in OC(due to 5 years of nose-bleed-home-pricing fueled by cotton candy mortgages) burning through 400 homes of foreclosures, and to see OC sellers asking for more money when selling their homes, please forgive me if I fail to be completely shocked and convinced at this stage of the collossal housing market collapse by the calling of bottom once again by representatives of that hot air balloon company.

1 comment:

Michael Deqel said...

I think that the market will turn around after the elections, slightly, then increase steadily with a new administration. It won't matter much who wins, so long as it's someone new: people will regain their optimism and begin buying again. It likely will take some time after that before there is a realization of past values, but the bottom is close if not here. Readers might be interested in my analysis here.