Even the die hard perma housing bears will have to put away their bear suits this Halloween.
The California Association of Realtors wrapped up their annual conference in Anaheim last week. The panel of experts said the bank’s “shadow inventory” which has been a threat by releasing discounted homes unto the market will only continue to trickle onto the market like it has been.
Shadow inventory is the backlog of homes of potential foreclosures that have not hit the market yet. In California, over 400,000 people are currently deliquent on their mortgages.
Investors or first time home buyers waiting for the shadow inventory to hit may have to wait at least a year longer. At least in California, buyers are still fighting the multiple offer game, which in many cases drive the prices higher than they should be.
“The market has improved moderately over the past year, and we expect that to continue into 2013,” said C.A.R. President LeFrancis Arnold. “Sales would be even higher if inventory were less constrained in REO-dominated markets, particularly in the Central Valley and Inland Empire, where there is an extreme shortage of available homes. Sales will be stronger in higher-priced areas, where there are more equity properties and a somewhat greater availability of homes for sale.”
The housing market momentum which began earlier this year will continue into 2013,” said California Association of Realtors(CAR) Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “Pent-up demand from first-time buyers will compete with investors and all-cash offers on lower-priced properties, while multiple offers and aggressive bidding will continue to be the norm in mid- to upper-price range homes.”
According to the CAR, selling prices of existing homes in the two-county San Bernardino/Riverside region increased 11 percent in August over year ago levels, while the number of homes sold dropped 5.7percent, the California Association of Realtors reported Monday.
This is good for conventional and especially California hard money lenders like myself.
As far as possible housing price declines go, I don’t think we are out of the woods yet but we are headed in the right direction.
George Kengott
The California Hard Money guy