[quote=spdrun] ~
Lastly, low inventory isn’t a sign of a healthy market. It’s a sign that no one wants to sell because they’re underwater, and CA law allows them to squat for quite a long time without paying. A “healthy” market by your definition would have both higher prices and inventory.[/quote]
Actually, spdrun, chronic “low inventory” is a sign that no one wants to sell because they have carefully maintained their properties over the course of decades and perhaps put $50-$100K (or more) of their own money into capital improvements. Plus, they possibly put years of “sweat equity” into them as well and so aren’t going to “give them away” to “bottom fishers.”
Those “underwater” owners you speak of (termed “FB’s” on this site) have been washed out of the equation. They’ve always been at the helm of this debacle and are finally running out of options.
Yay for them!
Where one sits on this issue is where they stand. There are no doubt a lot of folks out there standing in the very same place I’m sitting right now . . . thus the chronic “low inventory” problems you’re seeing out there.
