Zip Codes: 91006, 91007

Current Market Listings as of March 22nd, 2008*
Properties for Sale: 245 (-12)
Median Listing Price: $775,000 (+0.7%)

Weekly Foreclosure Update*
Properties in Foreclosure: 17 (+2)
Properties in Pre-Foreclosure: 65 (-7)
*+/- is compared to previous week’s data.

As housing prices decline, many people are tempted to jump into the market and grab their piece of the American dream. It is no different than all the people who bought into Bear Sterns at $41/share. Peaking at over $150/share just one year ago, $41 seemed like a steal, right?

Wrong. Over the last 6 months there has been no shortage of news regarding Wall Street’s credit problems and no financial institution that exposed themselves to subprime was immune from it. Many people believed that the worse was over and we’ve hit near rock-bottom. Bear Sterns reached that bottom pretty quick at $2/share.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with the rest of Wall Street and definitely not with U.S. housing crisis. MarketWatch has reported that new housing construction are at a 17 year low and that “the housing recession is intensifying.”

It’s only been a year since the credit and housing bubble “popped” so if the early 1990s are any indication, then the U.S. housing recession is in for several years of pricing corrections. For those of you too young to remember the decline after the 90s bubble, I will discuss that next week!

Property and foreclosure numbers obtained from U.S. Census, ZipRealty, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate and Foreclosure.com. Market listings obtained from DataQuick News.

Zip Codes: 91006, 91007

Current Market Listings as of March 15, 2008
Properties for Sale: 257 (+57)*
Median Listing Price: $769,000 (+1.4%)*

Weekly Foreclosure Update*
Properties in Foreclosure: 15 (+1)
Properties in Pre-Foreclosure: 72 (+8)
*+/- is compared to previous week’s data.

Although there is no shortage of data and reports showing that Souther California’s median home prices have dropped at record rates, there will still be the occasional piece proclaiming a strong market in desirable cities. Thanks to our AHB reader, Beachy, I was pointed to an article on the L.A. Land blog stating just that: A tale of two markets: High end holding steady. Peter Vile’s writes an excellent blog and I’m not trying to challenge his data (it’s the same numbers I use).

Peter reports that Arcadia’s median sales price is up from last year and my weekly Trulia chart also reflects this:

Median Sales Price for Homes in Arcadia

He then poses a question that I’m sure all of us have contemplated:

Will prices inevitably fall in the higher-priced areas, or will they hold their value? The short answer is, I don’t know. My gut is that prices will eventually decline in pricier neighborhoods, but won’t fall anywhere near as far as they will in cheaper areas. But I haven’t seen this movie before.

A very respectable answer to his own question. I, on the other hand, am willing to reach out there and say yes; even homes on the higher end of the spectrum will face declines comparable to their sub-$500k neighbors (percentage-wise).

Drawing from the same data used in the above chart, we can see that the volume of home sales have dropped off significantly since 2007:

Number of Home Sales in Arcadia, CA

I have always maintained that a decrease in transactions and increase of inventory will precede any major drop in sales prices. Sacramento, San Diego, the Inland Empire and even Orange County have all gone through this in the last 12 months.

Will Arcadia be any different? We have experienced incredible double-digit appreciation numbers over the last 3 years. I don’t find it hard to believe that a national real estate, credit and economy crisis will reverse those gains.

Property and foreclosure numbers obtained from U.S. Census, ZipRealty, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate and Foreclosure.com. Market listings obtained from DataQuick News.

Zip Codes: 91006, 91007

Current Market Listings as of March 1, 2008
Properties for Sale: 263 (+16)*
Median Listing Price: $779,000 (+0%)*

Weekly Foreclosure Update
Properties in Foreclosure: 14 (+3)*
Properties in Pre-Foreclosure:61 (-1)*
*+/- is compared to previous week’s data.

January sales figures are in:
Number of homes sold: 32 (+3 from Dec. 2007)
Median sales price: $687,500 (-13% from Dec. 2007)

In one month we saw a $102,500 drop in the median sales price (-13%). With an estimated median household income of $64,200, the median home price of $687,500 is 10.7 times that number. As the Wall Street Journal reports, California home prices are still 40% overpriced and we have a long way to go before housing becomes affordable again.

Graph provided by Yahoo/WSJ.

Just to get down to seven times incomes, prices would have to fall 37% tomorrow.

Property and foreclosure numbers obtained from U.S. Census, ZipRealty, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate and Foreclosure.com. Market listings obtained from DataQuick News.

Zip Codes: 91006, 91007

Current Market Listings as of February 16th, 2008
Properties for Sale: 247 (-1)*
Median Listing Price: $779,000 (+3.2%)*

Foreclosure Updates as of February 16th, 2008
Properties in Foreclosure: 11 (+1)*
Properties in Pre-Foreclosure:62 (-8)*
*+/- is compared to previous week’s data.

We would like to end the weekend by offering a word of support to OCRenter and the threat of lawsuit he is currently facing. As bloggers, all we do is gather publicly available information and present them to our readers. If you want more information about the subject property that OCRenter profiled and was forced to take down, check Chuck Ponzi’s site.

Property and foreclosure numbers obtained from U.S. Census, ZipRealty, Trulia, Yahoo Real Estate and Foreclosure.com. Market listings obtained from DataQuick News.

There are many homes on the market in Arcadia. If you don’t believe me, just drive through any neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon and you will see as I did. There were “Open House” signs on every corner, some with more than one sign on a corner and others with signs on all four corners. It’s clear that the scales have tipped in favor of the buyers as inventory keeps climbing with each passing day. How many more signs do you think we’ll see by Summer 2008?

Take a look at Redfin. On any given day, there are roughly 300 properties for sale in Arcadia alone. That’s a lot inventory.

I spent about an hour driving through the east half of Arcadia and saw one open house after another. Some realtors even sat outside the property greeting the very few prospective buyers I saw looking around. The market is clearly in trouble and the realtors know it. Do you see signs of distress?

I have boatloads of pictures showing more open house and for-sale signs, but they all look the same so I’m not going to post all 122945 of them. You get the point. The sellers are probably getting more and more anxious as they have open house week after week with no offers. The pressure will only increase as more homes come on the market with very few qualified buyers to absorb them.

You think things are bad now? Wait till the end of 2008 and 2009. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

“We are in a historic housing bust right now…” – Robert Shiller, Yale Professor of Econonics, Author of the best seller Irrational Exuberance and research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research