Sign of the Times: Southern California home sales down 30 pct in September
Author: Joshua Dorkin • URL: http://www.biggerpockets.com/October 17th, 2007 •
A new report about housing in Southern California doesn’t look good.
Sales of houses and condominiums in the most populous Southern California counties fell 29.9 percent from the previous month and 48.5 percent from a year earlier, DataQuick Information Systems said on Tuesday. The report covers the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura and showed a total of 12,455 new and existing homes and condos sold in September, the lowest since the company began recording the data in 1988.1
So, sales of homes last month were at their slowest rate in 19 years. No surprise!
With prices still in the stratosphere, it is no shock to me that nothing is selling. Everyone knows that the market is coming back, but the price of properties in SoCal are still 30-40% higher than they were 4 years ago and almost double what they were 7 years ago.
I’m going to be short the market for some time to come!
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Tags: california real estate, los angeles, real estate, san diego, southern california real estate
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
Troy Schuricht
Anwell Tsai
Richard Warren
Jim Watkins
Even if prices are higher they they used to be, there are still good values. A lot of great properties are available here in South Florida, because prices are coming down, but Realtors tell me that even when buyers find fairly priced properties that they really want, they end up not buying because they are scared of being embarrased. When they tell their family and friends that they have found a great property, even as a primary residence, the arm-chair investors say “what kind of fool would buy in this market?” or “you are dumb if you don’t wait a few more months.” Real estate purchasing requires confidence as well as research.
Slack period is on its way. Michigan market declines and so as US Dollar. It may be continued for few more months. So wait …
I am going to be short on California and Florida markets for at least 2 more years.
Boris, you are definitely right about the Michigan market. It’s pretty bad, but there is still a lot of business out there. Agents just don’t want to find it with new thinking, like using the net to obtain clients.
Thats amazing. I can recall just a few years back when agents from Texas wanted to move and sell in the California market. How quickly things change!