LOS ANGELES — Southern California home sales jumped 65 percent in September

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Here is the link to a great article that verifies what we have all been saying...The Buyers are back and we are seeing a great activity with mulitiple offers on many properties. I noticed that last week a Walteria property came on the market as a short sale and was bid up with 5 offers from High $300 to low $500K....Unbelievable but true.

What I am seeing is prices that are priced low and thus attracting multiple offers. I have seen some incredible deals from the Banks on Short Sales that are coming in with the Banks knocking off over $200,000 to $300,000.00 from the original loans owing... THe jump in interest rate last week has started the buyers who were hesitiating to jump and make a move and who could blame them...A 1% increase in a loan amount of $500,000.00 will cost a homeowner approimately $250,000.00 in extra interest if they keep the loan for the 25 year period.

Here's the article per fox news.com sent to me by one of my wonderful clients:

LOS ANGELES — Southern California home sales jumped 65 percent in September from a year ago, as plummeting prices fueled by foreclosures lured more buyers, a real estate tracking firm said Monday.

Last month's median home price in the six-county region fell 33.2 percent to $308,500, compared to $462,000 in September 2007, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick.

The September median price was 38.9 percent below the peak $505,000 median posted in spring and summer of last year.

John Husing, an economist with Economics & Politics Inc., a consulting firm, said the ample supply of discounted, foreclosed homes has kept downward pressure on prices.

Once foreclosures start drying up, prices will stabilize, but that could take another year, he said.

"The flow of foreclosures is enough to meet demand," he said.

Foreclosure resales amounted to half of all transactions last month, easily pushing sales beyond the dismal, record lows of a year ago, when a credit crunch began slamming the brakes on home financing.

"The pitifully low September 2007 sales numbers weren't tough to beat," said John Walsh, MDA DataQuick president.

Andrew LePage, an analyst with MDA DataQuick, said it's hard to estimate how many mortgage defaults were still in the pipeline. Some lenders are simply jammed with a backlog of paperwork, and the number of defaults by prime mortgage holders is increasing, he said.

.A total of 20,497 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the region last month, up 5.8 percent from 19,366 in August and up 64.6 percent from 12,455 in September 2007.

Last month's sales were the highest for any month since December 2006, and the year-over-year gain was the highest for any month in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988.