Clovis, CA

You can be President Barack Obama’s Chicago neighbor … if you have enough money and pass a secret service test. The Obama’s next door neighbors are selling their home in the wealthy South Side neighborhood. The listing agent is collecting offers on the home to see what prospective buyers will pay to live next door to the President of the United States. Homes in the neighborhood typically sell between $1 million and $2.5 million.

Unlike most Clovis homes for sale where you simply need to express an interest in seeing a property, in order to view Obama’s neighbor’s home, interested buyers must demonstrate sufficient income and the ability to spend at least $1.5 million on a home … and then explain to the Secret Service why this is where they want to live. If the would-be buyers passes these initial screening tests, a showing will be arranged. Few details currently are available on the home, including its price tag, but the current owners bought the 6,000-square-foot, 17 room home in 1973 for $35,000. Read More...

The CA Homes For Sale Price Report for July 2009 is now out. How does Clovis stack up to California? The medium price of a Clovis home was $164,000, compared to $247,500 for the rest of California. The $83,500 price difference demonstrates that Clovis homes are an exceptional value. In addition, Clovis homes prices are up from June and fewer Clovis homes are now on the market. What does this mean to you?

Clovis Homes For Sale

Fewer Clovis homes are for sale. In July there were 520 Clovis homes for sale. A year ago, there were 720. Today, there are 342 Clovis homes for sale. Less supply of homes typically pushes up home prices. In other words, if you're considering buying a Clovis home keep a close eye on the inventory of Clovis homes for sale, as it decreases, home prices will likely increase. Read more.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) pending home sales have have risen for six straight months, something not seen in the history of the Pending Home Sales Index.

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator of the housing market, is based on contracts signed in July 2009, increased 3.2% to 97.6 from a reading of 94.6 in June, and is 12.0% higher than July 2008 when it was 87.1. The index is at the highest level since June 2007, when it was 100.7. We'll share with you what an increase in pending home sales means to you.

Affordability at Record High

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the housing market appears to be improving. According to Yun, "The recovery is broad-based across many parts of the country. Housing affordability has been at record highs this year with the added stimulus of a first-time buyer tax credit."

"Other buyers are taking advantage of low home values before prices turn higher. Nationally, the typical mortgage payment now takes less than 25 percent of a middle-income family's monthly income to buy a median priced home, with payment percentages so far in 2009 being the lowest on record dating back to 1970. As long as home buyers stay within their budget, mortgage payments will be very manageable," Yun said. Read the rest of this article.

Are you a Clovis home buyer who’s been sitting on the fence? Your wait may be over. That’s what we learned yesterday at the National Residential Economic Report conference which forecast the housing market conditions for the next 5 years. The result? The Clovis real estate market is about to change from a buyer’s market — to a seller’s market.

For the past 3 years, many Clovis home buyers have been sitting on the fence — waiting for prices to bottom out — in order to get the best deal possible. Not a bad idea when you think of all the money they’ve saved. But here’s a economic fact: No one can time the bottom of the market. Why? Because no formula or data set can calculate when that will happen. Even the best economists and real estate experts can only ‘guestimate’ when home prices will start to increase for good. But one thing is for sure, all economic indicators say the same thing — we’re getting close to the bottom. Read more ...

Real Estate Economic Report

We just returned from the National Residential Economic Report conference which forecast the long term economic real estate / housing market conditions for the United States. We'll give you the highlights and tell you what it means for home prices and the overall real estate market.

Real estate economist, Mark Boud of Real Estate Economics, discussed the national real estate economic market conditions for the next 5 years. He then answered these 5 questions:

1. What will real estate prices look like 5 years from now?
2. Are homes affordable. Are they now under valued? By how much?
3. Are there enough homes for sale or will supply be a problem over the next 5 years?
4. Which metropolitan areas are showing promise?
5. What is the impact from retiring 'baby boomers' on the nation's housing market during the next cycle?

The real estate economic report was detailed and lengthy, so here's a snapshot of this report applied to our local real estate market in Clovis, CA.

Clovis Real Estate Economic Report

According to RealEstateEconomics.com, we can expect the future of the Clovis housing market to look like the following over the next 5 years: Read the rest of this article