My comment is not necessarily disputing or backing a spring rebound but I will say this.
1 – Overall active inventory growth is WAY slower then I personally expected it to be by this time of year.
2 – In places like Scripps Ranch for instance the active to pending ratio is better then it has been for many many months, perhaps as far back as 05.
3 – From open house activity there are buyers out there at least looking. Again much more activity then we had seen in many months.
4 – It “appears” to me that the differentiation between types of housing and neighborhoods is GROWING. That is, downtown condos are still deadwood even in the face of this robust activity. Lower end neighborhoods are also still pretty dog slow.
I believe sdrealtor also noted more robust activity in his submarket as well.
I think this all can be explained by a combination of several factors which I don’t want to go into yet. Secular market trends ALWAYS have cyclical rallies in them. I still “believe” we are in a secular decline however it would not surprise me at all to see the market rally be it for a month or a year in the absence of a major catalyst to propel prices down. Yes we see lots of NODs and even the REO numbers are moving up. However it is such a small fraction of the inventory that it ALONE will not push prices down substantially. Without something radical the decline will happen but it will be slower with rally periods mixed in.
However, I do not agree with the statements that statistics are not backing up a more robust market because for certain housing types, in certain neighborhoods, indeed the market is much better then it was last year. The numbers do bear this out.
