Selling in Orange County This Fall: A Slower Market With Solid Footing

If you are thinking about selling this fall, start with the reassuring part. Yes, the market has slowed, but the newest report from Steven Thomas at Reports on Housing makes it clear that this is nothing like the Great Recession. You would be selling from a position of strength, not weakness.

Inventory is 4,952 homes, down about 8 percent from a year ago and well under the pre COVID average of 6,400 from 2017 to 2019. Buyers have fewer choices than they would in a normal fall, so you are not facing a flood of competition when you come to market.

The overall Expected Market Time is 110 days, slower than the 85 days we saw a year ago, so buyers are patient right now. The market has not stalled, though. August still produced 1,755 closed sales, and well presented homes are going pending every week.

Here is the number that matters most to your bottom line. The sales to list price ratio is 99.5 percent, so correctly priced homes are still selling for essentially full asking. About 99.72 percent of recent sales came from sellers with equity, and only 13 homes in the entire county are distressed. Owners are in excellent financial shape.

Know your segment. Single family detached homes are the quicker part of the market at 99 days. Condos and townhomes are slower at 128 days, so attached sellers need especially sharp pricing. In luxury, homes from $2.5 million to $4 million sit near 121 days, the $4 million to $6 million range is around 218 days, and above $6 million takes real patience at 454 days.

In a patient market, pricing is everything. Buyers have choices and they will not overpay, so the homes that sell are priced to recent comparable sales, not to last spring's headlines. Precise pricing out of the gate protects your equity far better than testing a high number and then chasing the market down. Pair that with clean, bright, turnkey presentation and your home becomes the one buyers act on.

Timing helps too. The busiest listing months are behind us and fewer new homes are coming to market through the fall, so getting ahead of the holiday slowdown means less competition for the serious buyers who are still shopping. If you would like a precise, data driven look at what your home would bring in today's market, I am glad to put that together for you.