Scary headlines regarding the housing market are back! As if there isn't enough bad news about politics and the stock market, the Los Angeles Times yesterday (September 18) had an article on the front page stating nearly half of home sales in August in Southern California are now foreclosures. OMG! I can just see the panic that could arise from a headline like that. It was pretty scary to me, too, and I am in the industry! Hey, this is how I support my family!!
But as I have been telling everyone that asks, (and some that don't), remember, REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL!! (And a lot of the economy is psychological, but that is a whole other blog I likely will not write!). The Conejo Valley is not like the rest of Southern California.
So, what is the local market doing as far as foreclosures? Local, for me, is the Conejo Valley. The Conejo Valley encompasses the communities of Agoura, Oak Park, Westlake, Thousand Oaks, and Newbury Park. Each of these communities is unique. Thousand Oaks is the largest, Oak Park the smallest. And they are all great places to live and work. People continue to move to these areas because they are safe, and have great schools.
I went on line and did some quick research of my own to see how my local areas compared to those awful headlines. And by comparison, we look pretty darned good! In all of the Conejo Valley for the month of August, 185 homes sold. This number includes condos as well as single family homes. Of those 185, 28, or 15 % were bank owned. The breakdown by community looked like this:
| CONEJO VALLEY FORECLOSURE RATE | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| TOTAL # SOLD | # REO'S | PERCENT REO | |
| AGOURA | 18 | 1 | 6% |
| OAK PARK | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| WESTLAKE | 34 | 2 | 6% |
| NEWBURY PARK | 31 | 6 | 19% |
| THOUSAND OAKS | 87 | 19 | 22% |
| TOTALS | 185 | 28 | 15% |
Click here to SEARCH FOR HOMES IN OAK PARK, AGOURA, WESTLAKE, AND ALL OF VENTURA COUNTY.
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Carol provides superior personalized service. She is appropriately assertive, hard working, focused, and detail oriented. She combines acute business acumen with sensitive, caring people skills.
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In our market it's right around the 25% mark, give or take a few points...
This week I sold an oceanfront condo which in 2005 sold for $ 330,000. I sold it to my investor buyer for a mere $ 125,000. He bought it cash.
Cultivating foreign Investors will really help your performance. Cash rules right now (especially with oceanfront) and foreign buyers have a lot of cash...
Thanks for the update! I wonder what the other markets are like in regard to foreclosures.
CAROL,
HOW MANY OF THOSE ARE SHORTSALES.? I WORK L.A. AREA. THERE ARE ALOT OF SHORTSALES. I ALSO WORK O.C AND SAN BERNARDINO. MOST OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY IS ALL BANK OWNED. HUMMMMMM. MAKES YOU WONDER.....
ROSE
Carol... I am semi confused... you said.. "had an article on the front page stating nearly half of home sales in August in Southern California are now foreclosures."
I know this is from an article, but for August of 2008? And if so, how about common sense. How can that be true? You close in August and your first payment in most cases won't be due until October. Secondly, it most cases, it takes 4 months of missed payments for this to happen.
So... if what you said is true from this article, how about fighting this news. Call the editor.. the author of this article. If what you say is true on what they wrote, it is beyond misleading. I would love to see this article. thanks
Mirela- You are right, cash is king!
Rose- The numbers I wrote about were REO's only. To run numbers on short sales is too tough, as our MLS does not support a search with that crieterion, which means I would have had to look at each tansaction separately, which I didn't feel like doing.
Jeff- I am not sure where they got the info. the article was in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, September 18 Mine came from the MLS. Why fo you say it is beyond misleading?
Jeff- Here is the link for the article- let me know what you think. Icouldn't find it when I looked before. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-homes18-2008sep18,0,7611521.story