A very nice thing happened to me a few days ago... I received an e-mail from Peter Viles who has started a real estate blog for the Los Angeles Times called LA Land He found me through AR and featured a link to my post Southern California:The Market That Won't Die on his blog. Of course there was an immediate comment from Bakersfield Bubble who I believe was calling for reinforcements.
I'm currently having an interesting conversation with a gentleman named Howard in the comments part of that post here on AR. I don't know if Howard is a friend of the Bakersfield Bubble author or if he found me by accident. He also thinks I'm crazy and that the California housing market will soon fall into the abyss predicted by all Bubble bloggers and their followers. I know I won't win any points with Howard because he has his mind made up and nothing is going to sway him from his beliefs. But who knows perhaps we will both learn something.
So it was nice to find the following article in The Daily Breeze County's Housing Risk Limited. I was rather surprised to see this on the front page of the Business section... as articles that are somewhat favorable about the real estate market usually wind up in a small paragraph on the back page. The authors of the report HomeSmartReports.com is a company that tracks real estate activity through out the United States and compiles reports for buyers and sellers. Their conclusion is that California may hold up better then other real estate markets in the country.
Mike Ela, the company president, seems to think that California and particularly Southern California will have some problems but should weather the storm. Currently he uses a risk index scale rating of 0-100. Most of the country has seem their risk index level rise in the first quarter of this year from 5.24 to 5.43. In California the risk factor has risen from 1.45 to 1.82. In Los Angeles County that risk index rose from 1.14 to 1.30. In Orange County they put the risk index at 0.72. Mr. Ela believes that the Central Valley market of Visalia-Porterville will have major problems and has given them a risk index level of 4.50. Just so we don't get too excited Mr. Ela does point out that a lot of subprime loan defaults could change things somewhat in the future.
The South Bay and the local Beach Cities seem to be holding their own. In our office meeting this morning many of the agents have run into multiple offer situations on well priced properties in good locations. Over priced homes continue to hang on the market. Manhattan Beach is seeing an increase in sales as are the other Beach Cities... Hermosa, Redondo and El Segundo.
I think if California continues to have a fairly stable job market we might make it through the next year slightly bloody and wounded but not defeated.
Southern California Real Estate: The Market That Won't Die.
All content copyright © 2007 Kaye Thomas
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