Market News 
Buyer Urgency Shows the Time to Buy is Now
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 11:53am. 7 Views, 0 Comments.
Homebuyers are looking at the current home prices and low mortgage interest rates and seeing an urgency to buy now. The growing fear is that these prices and rates won't last forever.
Recent housing surveys who that many Americans feel the now is a good time to buy a home. The most recent Fannie Mae Housing Market Survey showed that 73 percent actually feel this way, according to the March 2012 survey. This is a 70 percent increase since just February 2012.
The chief economist at Fannie Mae, Doug Duncan, says that the current market conditions are encouraging consumers to want to become homebuyers. Many feel as if being a renter is starting to be more costly than the costs of being homeowners. This is making buying a home now a more…
Vacation Home Sales on the Rise
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012 at 8:02pm. 39 Views, 0 Comments.
Buyers are returning to the vacation home market in record numbers. Unfortunately, what they're finding is that the inventory is low in Santa Cruz County. In this video, Coldwell Banker's CEO discusses the surging vacation home market on Fox Business News.
Warren Buffet's Latest Take on Real Estate
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 at 3:17pm. 123 Views, 0 Comments.
Warren Buffet is a billionaire whose words demand the attention of others. In a recent interview on CNBC Squawk Box, he was quoted as saying, "I'd Buy Up 'A Couple Hundred Thousand' Single-Family Homes If I Could", calling them very captivating investments in the current housing market. This idea extends to the Santa Cruz beach homes.
Warren Buffet Predictions
As the local market conditions continue to recover, Buffet believes that the current home prices and record-low mortgage interest rates make this the perfect time to invest. Currently, purchasing single-family homes as long-term investments is even wiser than flipping stocks. This is amazing information coming from a man who has always been known to consider stocks to be the wisest …
Coastal Sales Mostly Exempt from Distress
Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 6:36pm. 272 Views, 0 Comments.
The coastal market in Santa Cruz County has been mostly exempt from short sales and bank-owned sales, as the graph below demonstrates. From January through April of 2011, there were a total of 11 distressed sales in the coastal area of the county, and 53 non-distressed sales. Furthermore, none of the distressed sales exceeded $900,000, while there were 20 sales over $900,000 that were non-distressed.
Visualize 2011 Sales
Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 6:36pm. 284 Views, 0 Comments.
Check out the following visualization of sales from January through April 2011. One interesting thing to note is that there are virtually no distressed sales in the coastal corridor.
Are Prices Going Up?
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 12:56pm. 273 Views, 0 Comments.
One of the key measures of market activity shifted dramatically into seller's market territory last month, signaling a possible increase in home prices as demand outpaces supply. The Months of Inventory indicator, which shows the ratio of homes for sale (supply) to homes sold (demand) fell to four months of inventory in March from seven months in February. (See the market statistics page for details.)
What's really surprising is the number of homes for sale has declined month over month since October; inventory traditionally increases monthly after the first of the year as we approach the spring and summer selling seasons.
An even more current measure of market activity is to compare the number of properties for sale to the number currently in contract…
Silicon Valley's increasing dominance in tech sector bodes well for housing
Monday, March 21st, 2011 at 4:32pm. 326 Views, 0 Comments.
Most of us in the Bay Area realize how important Silicon Valley is to the region’s health and wellbeing. The Valley has spawned many successful startups over the years, attracting highly skilled, highly paid workers, venture capital, and strong demand for housing. But just how dominant Silicon Valley is in the tech sector is surprising even the experts. And it bodes well for the long-term future of our Bay Area housing market.
Entrepreneur and former MIT research director Branko Gerovac examined the S&P Technology 1500 – the largest public technology companies in America – that have been created over the past 20 years to find out where and when they were launched. What he discovered was that every year, the Bay Area and…
High End Coastal Sales Shoot Up
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 7:23pm. 277 Views, 0 Comments.
Sales of homes over $900,000 in Santa Cruz County increased more than 70% in February over the previous month, signaling the high end will rebound in 2011. Year-over-year, sales over $1.5M increased from zero in 2010 to eight in 2011. (See the market statistics page for details.)
Coastal sales in particular are on the upswing, accounting for six of the eight sales over $1.5M.
More and more, I'm hearing buyers say they believe prices bottomed out last year and they're eager to get in before prices start to increase.
The second-home market was hit particularly hard last year as discretionary buyers sat on their hands watching for signs of the bottom. Solid gains in the stock market have given those buyers more buying power, as well as more bargaining…
Pending Home Sales Increase 13.6%
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 9:07pm. 205 Views, 0 Comments.
Pending home sales in California increased in January, according to California Association of Realtor's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI). The index was 93.6 in January, rising 13.6 percent from December’s index of 82.4, based on contracts signed in January. Pending home sales are forward-looking indicators of future home sales activity, providing information on the future direction of the market.
“Pending sales typically rise in January from a seasonally slow November and December,” said C.A.R. President Beth L. Peerce. “January’s pending sales should be reflected in higher existing sales activity in February and March and serve as a precursor to the spring home buying season.”
New Design District Rules Could Keep Pleasure Point "Weird"
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 3:46pm. 365 Views, 0 Comments.
The California Coastal Commission has given its initial nod of support to a set of new building rules that will attempt to protect Pleasure Point’s local identity and deter the building of large homes that some feel are too big and out-of-place.
The proposed regulations are a mix of new restrictions and new leniency that will hopefully find middle-ground between those in favor of protecting Pleasure Point’s image and those who are opposed to limiting the rights of home- and land-owners.
Read the whole story: santacruzsentinel.com
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