Lake County Real Estate Outlook: Sales Picking Up Tempo

Real Estate Outlook: Sales Picking Up Tempo

Here's an important question about the current market: To figure out where we are in the current real estate market, do you look at home prices or do you focus on sales?

In a real estate market where an estimated 35 to 40 percent of all home sales are foreclosures or short sales - in other words, distressed properties-- prices don't tell you much more than the obvious that we are still "correcting" the excesses of the boom years, still peeling back those wild and unsustainable hyperinflationary price run ups.

So it's no surprise that median prices are down, year to year, in Lake County and other areas across the nation.

Sales statistics, on the other hand, tell you how fast buyers are responding to those lower prices -- and greatly improved affordability.

Right now, in Lake County sales are definitely increasing. According to information gathered from the Lake County Multiple Listing Service (MLS), fourth quarter sales are 55 percent higher than a year ago.

In a recent report from the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) sales are way up in most areas of California. This is great news, and we're in a recession. .

No question that a high proportion of these sales are distressed properties.

A total of 3,157,806 foreclosure filings, including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions, were reported on 2,330,483 U.S. properties during the year, an 81 percent increase in total properties from 2007 and a 225 percent increase in total properties from 2006, according to RealtyTrac®'s 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report^TM. According to the report, 1.84 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 54) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 1.03 percent in 2007.

But that's what the bottom of a real estate cycle looks like: Value-savvy buyers see the opportunities, move in and mop up the mess left over after the big party.

Happily, in this cycle, they're getting real help from the capital markets: Mortgage money is at historically-attractive low levels, and is readily available to anyone with a down payment and reasonable credit.

Rates fell again last week to an average 5.12percent for 30-year fixed loans, according to Reality Times Interest Rate Watch, and to 4.80 percent on average for 15 year loans.

If you can spot the opportunities -- and have the resources -- it's not a bad time to be a buyer.

For more information contact Ray Perry at Ray@RayPerry.com or http://RayPerry.com