California May Sales

SoCal home prices up 21%; February sales volume hits 6-year high

The six-county Southland saw the median home price rise nearly 21% over the year, while remaining essentially flat compared with January, real estate information provider DataQuick said Wednesday.
A total of 15,945 new and resale homes and condos sold in February — the highest volume for a February in six years. Buyers in Southern California paid a median of $320,000 last month as fewer homes sold in lower-cost Riverside and San Bernardino counties that have become a haven for investors looking to flip or rent out houses.

“Most every gauge shows prices are up significantly over the past year, even after adjusting for changes in the types of homes selling,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in a statement.
Still, last month's median price was still well off the 2007 peak of $505,000, Walsh noted.
The median sales price is the point at which half of homes sold for more and half sold for less; it is influenced by the types of homes selling as well as a general rise or fall in values.
Home prices have been on the rise as inventory has tightened significantly and interest rates have remained low. Investors have scooped up many low-priced and bank-owned properties to rent or flip and foreclosures have made up a declining share of homes sold.
Foreclosed homes were 15.8% of the resale market last month, down from 32.6% a year earlier.
Absentee buyers — chiefly investors, along with some second-home buyers — accounted for 31.4% of home sales in February, the highest figure since DataQuick began tracking the figure in 2000. Buyers paying with cash purchased a near-record 35.6% of homes.
Data from the previous two months shows investors playing a major role, Walsh said. But that may be influenced some by the holiday house-hunting season, which tends to skew the buyer pool more toward investors.
“March and April will offer a better view of how broader market trends are shaping up this year,” Walsh said. ”One of the real wild cards will be how many more homes go up for sale. More people who've long been thinking of selling will be tempted to list their homes at today's higher prices.”
As prices rise, more homeowners will escape their negative equity positions, allowing them to sell their homes and potentially loosening supply. “A meaningful rise in the supply of homes on the market should at least tame price appreciation,” Walsh said.
All counties — Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura — saw significant price increases.
Orange County saw the most dramatic price gains as the county’s median sales price rose 22.3% to $477,000.  In Los Angeles County, the median sales price rose 17.1% — a sizable jump, but the smallest of the region. Buyers there shelled out a median of $350,000.

4 Tips for Sellers to Seal the Deal

You want to get the best price for your homes as quickly as possible. Who doesn’t? But how do you entice prospective buyers to seal the deal? Impress potential buyers with these four well-researched real estate tips, and you may impress yourselves with the results.

1. Sales price

A correctly priced house is the key to selling a home. Buyers will be looking for a home to meet their price point and includes their top priorities. In most cases a home listing becomes stale due to improper pricing. A house priced too high may miss potential buyers, which costs time and money. And of, course, you don’t want to price yourself so low that you lose money on the house. You want to seal the deal.

2. Location, location, location

A home in an excellent location sells quicker and for more money. Home buyers seek quality of life in a neighborhood: parks, community pools, gyms and supermarkets close to home. Properties close to mass transportation, highways and fewer traffic zones save time, and they can add a lot of lifestyle convenience. This goes for future resale value, too: a home located a block from a noisy train station will have lower resale potential than one two blocks from a school and park.

3. Fix it up

This is the time to spruce up your house to seal the deal. Odd jobs you’ve put off: do them now. Fix the damaged door hinge, the chipped light switch, and the paint on the garage door. You don’t want a picky buyer to pass on your $300,000 home because they were put off by a spot of peeling paint that made them wonder if anything else is less than tip-top shape. You want to seal the deal instead by doing the little things.

4. Make your home welcoming

Sellers need to present a welcoming atmosphere. This is the best opportunity to showcase the qualities of your home for home buyer viewings so you can seal the deal. Clean up the yard as much as possible. Purchase a nice welcome mat and some potted plants to place around the entrance to the house. If your REALTOR® makes suggestions for staging the home interior—decluttering, moving furniture, maybe painting a wall—heed them. They know what’s selling. And they want no less than that for your home, too.

All sellers want to be able to seal the deal quickly, so that they can move on to their next experience. Following these quick sellers tips can help get that done sooner, rather than later.