There is a significant decrease in number of available homes for sale and increase in pending home sales in Orange County California. When comparing to the number of May 24th 2007, there were 16,238 active listings and only 3,001 properties in pending status, today's figures are reversed, half actives and almost doubled pending sales. As of August 5th 2009, there are 8,750 active listings in Orange County and 6461 properties in pending status according to SoCal Tempo MLS.
For properties below the median price range, buyers are struggling to get in the market and are willing to pay over the list price. Appraisers are having hard time to appraise to those values. In many cases, buyers end up paying the difference between the appraised value and the sales price. In multiple offer scenarios, buyers are asked to remove the appraisal contingency and show the proof of extra funds. All this leaves genuine families out and people with the cash power get the property. But, this is not the case for properties in higher price range, those are still in declining mode and sit on the market for a longer period.
All this appears to be a result of multiple moratoriums and is not a stable trend, but what could be better time than this to start bringing in the shadow REO inventory in to the market, and let the right candidates buy? Although lending is tough, today's buyer is more stable than Real Estate Boom time, which could lead to healthy slow but steady recovery in the future.
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