The Buyer's Playbook: Reading the September 14 Orange County Housing Report

Steven Thomas at Reports on Housing titled the newest report The Buyer's Playbook, and the idea is simple. The buyer who understands the current data walks in with a game plan, while the buyer who guesses is at a disadvantage. The market is leaning gently toward buyers right now, yet the well priced turnkey homes still move fast. Both things are true at the same time.

There are 4,939 homes actively for sale today, down 43 over the past two weeks after peaking near 5,054 a month ago. That is about 4 percent more inventory than a year ago, but it is still lean. The pre COVID average from 2017 to 2019 was 6,520 homes, so we are running roughly 1,581 homes, or 32 percent, below a normal early fall.

Demand, measured as new pending sales over the past month, eased to 1,468, down about 4 percent in two weeks and roughly 8 percent below a year ago. Mortgage rates near 7.17 percent today, up from around 6.75 percent in August and more than a full point higher than last year, are keeping some buyers patient. Even so, plenty of people are still buying.

The Expected Market Time, the number of days it would take to sell every listing at the current pace, is 101 days. Two weeks ago it was 98 days, and a year ago it was 90 days, so we are a touch slower than last fall but far from stalled. Values remain sticky. The Zillow Home Price Index has been positive most months since last October, and any softening has been small, so do not expect plunging prices.

Underneath the surface there are two stories. Detached homes are the quicker segment at 92 days, while condos and townhomes sit at 115 days, which means more negotiating room on attached homes. The luxury market above $2.5 million cooled slightly to 157 days as demand took a breather, though luxury demand is still up about 16 percent from a year ago.

The signals of a healthy market are all here. The sales to list price ratio is 99.5 percent, so correctly priced homes are still fetching essentially full asking. Distress is almost invisible, with only 12 distressed homes in the entire county, and about 99.7 percent of August closings came from sellers with equity. August produced 1,755 closed sales. This is a stable, workable market.

The bottom line is that buyers have more selection and more breathing room than they did in the spring, and sellers who price to real comparable sales are still winning. If you want to know what these numbers mean for your home or your next move, call or text me anytime at 657.340.0418 and we will build a plan around your timeline.