Yep there is an undetermined amount of fraud on the section of the RPA that asks about owner occupancy. You called it.
I think also there are investor groups making bulk purchases that are beyond the scope of my knowledge because they make direct purchases from lenders and get large discounts. Down at my level I can only comment on the frustrations my own clients have seen when they ask me to call in on this short sale, or that short sale. You see what I am saying? Last year it would be like, call any short sale and the bulk of them didn’t have offers and the agents would beg you to send em in. Not the same today. Also there really is a lack of quality inventory. A nice place hit the market in Calavera Hills 4 days ago. There is an identical floorplan 3 houses down that is already pending. The new listing was listed 100k more then the pending listing (the pending one is a short sale btw) The new listing had 5 offers in 4 days, the accepted offer being all cash and above asking. That is freaking crazy!!! Now the new listing showed great and had a lot size that was 40% larger. Without any doubt I feel that this new listing would not have had that activity last summer. No how, no way. Yet it was a home that showed really well, and was priced aggressively compared to the other nicer homes in the neighborhood. Also the pending home in Normal Heights on Panorama is another case of me scratching my head. No way in hell that thing should go for a penny over the mid 700s but it is in escrow at 829. What the hell!! Anyways these are only two examples but two I am familiar with because I had buyers that got scorched in each of them. I can give many more examples but again, it is all smaller stuff. Whether it is anecdotal on a more macro level is speculative, I think it is though. I also really do believe it is temporary.
Getting back to the statement about tracking inventory as a flawed indicator. I think that you are right, it does have to many dislocations. Unfortunately it is a very basic statistic that is the foundation for other measurements and without it things become challenging. I am not sure what to do to compensate for it. I was thinking about trying to look at the number of cancelled, expireds, and withdrawns for various time periods of the past couple years. It may give some more info but I suspect nothing of substantial value. Still though it may be worth it.
I think in general we will see a flattening of the curves in many areas and steepening of the curve in other areas that are in the 800 plus range. (wow what a revelation right?)
As far as the crazy stuff goes yep I agree. I think between the crazy stuff our white house, fed and treasury are going to do and the crazy stuff the real estate market will do it will be quite a ride.
