Out of curiosity I ran my own zip code, similar results, inventory is incredibly low. I have a theory. When I broke down the numbers there were about 160 normal listings and 100 shorts. These don’t count those already in escrow/pending. 2 or 3 years ago, these totals were at least double, but mostly they were shorts. From 07-09 shorts took forever, foreclosures took forever. Shorts sat on the market for 6 months listed as active when in fact there were a dozen offers, it skewed the stats. Now shorts seem to happen faster and are more likely to be accurate about pending or not.
The total number combined, shorts, active and pending is at 300 today, it was 500 at it’s two year peak and this week last year and the year before it was at 450ish, so it’s down by a third, so it’s not the seasonal variation mentioned above.
I unchecked everything except for sales records and picked the largest span available of 3 years. That number was 4,800. The zip code has 40k people and just under 15k housing units. So in the last three years, 1/3 of all of housing units turned over, at lower prices and rates. This doesn’t include 2008, it doesn’t include when I bought, and doesn’t include this particular zip code’s bottom. It’s probably closer to half because Temecula was experiencing tsuinami like conditions in 2008. So with half of all the houses having new owners, not underwater and not having exotic financing, they are running out of people who want to move, most people just did.
That’s my theory, it only applies to my zip code, but it’s not a case of manipulation here, just a market dynamic. There will always be divorce, death and relocations, but they will not be huge spikes, rather slow, small and steady. The spike, the reset, well, it already happened. Wait ten years, it will happen again.
I don’t want to start a riot, but there is one inevitible thing that happens when the supply begins to dip. Nah, I don’t want to upset anyone.
