I get this question quite often from sellers when I call to discuss their Big Bear Home, so this morning I pulled the information from the MLS to provide an accurate answer. In the past 30 days, we have had 47 residential sales in Big Bear close escrow. We have 70 sales that are pending in Big Bear Valley. So the answer is YES! Houses are selling in Big Bear

Below is the breakdown is of the closings in the past 30 days: 

1 - WHISPERING FOREST

8 - SUGARLOAF

9 - MOONRIDGE

5 - FOX FARM

1 - FAWNSKIN

3 - ERWIN LAKE

10 - BIG BEAR LAKE

10 - BIG BEAR CITY

It looks like the sells are spread out over Big Bear Valley fairly evenly by location.

The 2 lowest price sales occurred in Sugarloaf. They were both sold at $140,000. They were both one bedroom one bath cabins. One of these is shown in the photo on the right. These starter cabins in Sugarloaf are great for people that want to get their feet wet and buy a place to get a way. They are also great for people that are not able to afford a home in the market that they live, but want to enjoy the rewards of ownership. The average price sold was $360,340, and the median price sold was $286,000. The average days on the market was 126 and the price sold averaged 93.48% of the asking price. This doesn't mean you should offer 93.5 % of the asking price of the home that your Big Bear Real Estate agent shows you. What it does mean is that the houses that are priced well enough to generate an offer were negotiated to this price. The overpriced houses in the market didn't get any offers. This is important to understand. Have your Big Bear Real Estate agent tell you if a home is priced correctly. Have your agent run recent comparable sales to establish a fair price before you place that offer. Sometimes homes will still sell at or above asking price if they are priced correctly, and other sellers are so unreasonable that they will see offers that are far below their inflated asking price. Overpricing in this market is a recipe for disaster. The longer this goes on the less you will get for your Big Bear Home. 

The highest price Big Bear home sold in the past 30 days was $1,420,000 (see photo left). This was a Lakefront home in Big Bear Lake. The list price was $1,650,000. It was on the market for 62 days. This home had a dock and great location on Big Bear Lake. The market seems to be continuing to soften with values falling at a rate of approx. 1% per month overall. One of the areas that is being hit hard on price is Big Bear City. While the area is still seeing a fair share of the sales each month, the homes over $400,000 in Big Bear City are slow moving. The reason for this is the competition that these properties are getting from Big Bear Lake West, Big Bear Lake Central, Big Bear Lake East, Fox Farm, and Moonridge. Prices in these areas have come down and there are some great values in the $400,000's and $500,000's that we haven't seen for a few years. Most of the buyers in Big Bear are second home owners, and they tend to prefer the Moonridge, Big Bear East, Fox Farm, Big Bear Central, Big Bear West, Eagle Point, Eagle Mountain and Castle Glen areas. This means sellers in Big Bear City are going to need to get their prices in line if they want to sell.

I am really getting excited about some of the great deals that are available in the Big Bear area. As I have said before, if you are a buyer, what are you waiting for? This is a chance to pick up a second home at a discounted price.