The California Association of Realtors (C.A.R) quietly announced their latest Q2 dataset of housing affordability numbers this month and the results were a little scary. As many readers know, I have been committed to covering C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index (HAI) results each quarter because of its unique calculations that help forecast where California home prices may go. Never before have we seen a recession brought on by a pandemic that then fueled a housing boom, thanks mostly to historically low interest rates and partly due to changing buyer needs with remote work. Now fast forward two years, the main driver of demand – interest rates – have essentially doubled in cost. Additionally, buyers are going back
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Month: August 2022
New construction homes can be tough to come by these days. Inflated building costs and extended building timelines have yielded fewer options, along with the fact that two to two and a half years ago, builders put spec buying and building on hold during the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic. As a result, it seems there are little new construction options to go around – not to mention, low interest rates in early 2022 fueled buyers to gobble up already squeezed inventory for new homes. Today, it is tough to find fairly priced new construction in this shifting market. For this week’s blog, I want to share new construction listings in two different submarkets: East Manhattan
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If you look at the South Bay July home data, it is sitting at record high median prices on a rolling 12-month average. The past two years have been breathtaking when it comes to price growth, demand, and lack of supply – and the July numbers illustrate the results of that home buying frenzy. With all that said, record price after record price does not last forever. If you read my blog post a few weeks ago, South Bay July Home Data Gives a Glimpse into the Shifting Market, you will see record high median prices but with undercurrents of how the market may be shifting. While South Bay properties selling at a loss are a
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The local South Bay real estate market is in such an interesting position this summer. There is a dichotomy facing buyers and sellers, full of mixed signals, making it hard to figure the market’s near-term direction. On the positive side, we see strength in the home market with ultra-low inventory, few (if any) distressed sales, and record high prices. On the negative side, we see weakness in the home market with low affordability, high interest rates, and a huge drop in pending sales. What is a buyer to do with these signals to mitigate their risk? It is really a tough call – especially if you are a first-time home buyer. If high interest rates are
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The thick marine layer hugging our South Bay beaches the past two months might have some of you forgetting it’s summer and that might be a perfect metaphor for the current state of our local housing market. If the South Bay housing market was a season, it is shaping up to be a cool, cool summer. The scorching hot market of the past two years is finally cooling off. With the conclusion of July comes a nice batch of new numbers to study. While I typically do not write about numbers for just one month, I do think it is prudent to study and share this past July action. I have covered five cities with the
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