I hate to throw out BULLISH news but the data is what is. Total SD County listings for attached and detached properties are 15,392 DOWN from 15,535 last week. That figure is also lower than it was 2 weeks. This comes at a time when inventory is generally increasing at a pretty good clip! Unless we start piling on the listings, prices could even actually creep back up a bit in the Spring. Inventory is leaving the market faster than it comes on. In my sub-market pendings have climbed faster than listings for the 3rd week in a row.
The market is transitioning toward stagnancy dominated by distress sales. As a future buyer, I would not be looking forward to buying in that kind of market either. The challenge with distress sales is that they are quite complex relative to ordinary transactions and the property is usually taken over in very rough condition. If my expectations continue, its not going to be a fun market for buyers or sellers. Buyers will get beaten up properties requiring alot of work upfront and sellers will be disgusted at missing out on the peak.
I expect no more than a 5% reduction this year and wouldn’t be surprised to see flat or even slightly increasing prices.
