Last week, April 27th to be exact, the Wall Street Journal published a story entitled, “Stunned Home Buyers Find the Bidding Wars are Back”. The story indicated that from California to Florida an increasing number of buyers are competing for the same house.
As the story perceptively states, “The bidding wars caused by tight inventory provide the latest evidence that housing demand is starting to pick up after a six year slump.”
Here, in Chatsworth, the average sale price of a home closed above $400,000 for the first time since the housing bubble burst in 2008. That is a significant fact. As I am writing this blog, there are 89 homes for sale in Chatsworth, 66 of those are single family residences. As of today, April 29th, 23 Chatsworth real estate sales have closed this month.
Yesterday my partner and I showed a young couple a property that they fell in love with. They are going to have their agent write an offer. Later in the day we held an open house on another property. A year ago we would have been lucky to have 6 families come through. Yesterday we had 14.
According to recent financial news reports, real estate investment trusts (reits) have enjoyed a healthy 2012. I know that the two I own on the New York Stock Exchange are are doing well. New home sales rose in March.
So, just maybe, if you are thinking about buying a home, you may not want to wait much longer. And if you are planning to sell your home, you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.
In other words, if we haven’t hit the bottom of the market, we may be close.
Of course, the unemployment figures still suck, both locally and nationally. And its hard to afford a home if you don’t have a job. And the asking price of that house we did the open house on yesterday is $550,000. A few years ago it would have sold for around $800,000.
So we definitely aren’t in the best of times. But it looks like we are certainly not in the worst of times, either. In fact, when it comes to our real estate market, I think it is safe to say we are definitely in better times.
