Shrinking Housing Inventory

Both home prices and home sales in September continued at levels higher than last year, according to the RE/MAX National Housing report, a survey of MLS data in 52 metropolitan areas. For the eighth consecutive month, September’s median home price was higher than the previous year. Median prices rose 7.8% from September 2011. Home sales followed a seasonal pattern and dropped lower than levels seen in August, but maintained a level 0.5% higher than sales last year. Inventory was 29.1% below September 2011 and may have contributed to the drop in sales from August. While low inventories are creating bidding wars in some markets, they also have resulted in prices moving higher. read more

Declining Foreclosure Activity

Per foreclosureradar.com, September 2012 California Notice of Defaults were down 20.7 percent from the prior month, and down 48.1 percent compared to last year. There has been speculation that the banks would rush to clear inventory before the CA Homeowner Bill of Rights takes affect in January 2013, causing an increase in the number of foreclosures. Clearly this is not the case as we continue to see the number of Foreclosure Starts decline. Notice of Trustee Sales remains basically flat, up 1.9 percent from the prior month. read more

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