A Shred of Good News

Pending Home Sales in California Higher for Seventh Month in a Row

California Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales fell 9.1% in November 2011, but were up from a year ago. Based on contracts signed in November, the index came in at 109.8 (down from October’s revised index of 120.9). The index was up 11%, however, from November of 2010.

This marked the seventh month in a row that pending sales were up from last year. Equity sales (as opposed to short pays or bank owned homes)) accounted for more than half (55.1%) of sold homes in November, up from 53.9% in October and 54.4 % in November 2010.

Real Estate Headlines, taken it with a grain of salt...

A recent Pending Home Sales Report stated that signed contracts on existing homes slipped in January for the second month in a row. Come to think of it, that may not be a huge surprise since not many people shop for homes during the holidays.

We should be somewhat cautious about buying into the doom & gloom and not erect barriers to our progress just because of a minor setback, like the one we had with last week's Pending Home Sales. Although The National Association of Realtors (NAR) records show fewer signed contracts on existing homes, the drop wasn't as severe as anticipated. NAR's chief economist stated: "We should not expect the recovery to be in a straight upward path--it will zigzag at times."

The most recent general forecast from NAR showed an interesting projection of that recovery. Property re-sales should grow 8.1% this year and an additional 5.2% in
2012. Median prices are expected to be static during 2011 and then increase over 3% next year. Sales of new homes are projected to go up about 5% this year, to over 55% for 2012. Median price will move up a bit in 2011, then up 3.5% next year.

As always bear in mind that this is a National survey and real estate and economies vary geographically. More soon on Ventura County real estate and California…