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O.C. Home Sales Up 33%
Sales of homes in Orange County surged last month by 33% while inventory declined by 9%. Demand has been surprisingly strong over the past four weeks. New pending sales increased in Orange County to 3,553 homes, an increase of 306 over the previous month. This is the highest number of pending sales since August of 2005. The average expected time for a home to be on the market today is 4.35 months (number of active listings divided by the number of pending sales).
Comparing the current environment to last year, there was a total of 2,374 pending sales at this time last year, or 1,179 less than today. This is an increase of 50% year-over-year. Two years ago, demand was at 1,628 homes, or 85% less than today and three years ago demand was 21% less for a total of 2,942. (…)
Sales of $1 Million Homes Plunge in CA
Sales of million dollar homes plunged in 2008 to the lowest level in five years, the result of a dried-up loan industry for jumbo morgages, as well as a decline of the value of many homes just over the million-dollar threshold.
A total of 24,436 homes were sold in California for a million dollars or more in 2008, down 42.5 percent from 2007. It was the lowest sales count since 20,595 were sold in 2003. In 2006, the million dollar-plus total was 50,010 and peaked in 2005 at 54,773. The total in 2004 was 36,990.
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Lenders Approving More Short Sales
Loan servicers approved nearly three times as many short sales in the last three months of 2008 as they did in the first quarter of the year, but still completed close to six foreclosures for every short sale, according to a report issued by bank regulators last week.
The report also showed that delinquencies continued to climb, with the biggest jump in prime mortgages, and that nearly half of the borrowers granted loan modifications were seriously delinquent or in foreclosure within eight months of receiving the modification.
In their report, bank regulators said loan modifications were more effective when they reduced monthly payments by more than 10 percent, with only 23 percent of those loans seriously delinquent six months after a modification. That compares with the 46 percent of all loans modified during the second quarter that were seriously delinquent after eight months.