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OC Home Supply at 11-Month Low

By
Real Estate Agent with eXp Realty of California

It would take 7.5 months for buyers to gobble up all the Orange County homes listed for sale last week at the current pace of deals - the lowest level of home inventory since last April, according to market watcher Steve Thomas. 
  
Thomas, of Re/Max Real Estate Services in Aliso Viejo, every two weeks calculates "market time," a benchmark of how many months it theoretically takes to sell all the inventory in the local MLS for-sale listings at the current pace of pending deals being made. Thomas' inventory measure was at 6.09 months a year ago. 

A key reason for the improvement: The latest count of deals in escrow is 2,083, up 109 percent from Jan. 19's wintertime low. Thomas also says new loan limits are having an impact on demand. "Lenders are scrambling in preparation for the new conventional and the FHA loan limits of $729,750, which are just beginning to hit the market," he said. 
  
"At 10 percent down, the old $417,000 limit only covers 37 percent of the current active inventory. The new limits now encompass a staggering 75 percent of the inventory," Thomas said.  His latest biweekly inventory count finds the number of dis- tressed properties - homes listed by agents as foreclosures or short sales - was 5,221 last week, an increase of 164 vs. two weeks earlier, or a 3.2 percent change. As a percent of all listed homes for sale, distressed properties were 33.4 percent of the market last week vs. 32.8 percent two weeks earlier. 


 

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