Yes, sales are brisk **at the right price.** For those who overprice their homes, they are sitting without any offers for a long, long time.
Agree that the lack of sales is due to the lack of inventory, but we differ in opinion regarding the level of distress in this area. Many of those “upgraded” homes came courtesy of HELOCs and cash-out refis because people thought they would recoup the money spent on improvements…and then some. As most people know, you rarely get 100% back on improvements (there are a few particular exceptions to this rule, but they usually involve room additions/major reconfigurations, not granite countertops).
IMHO, the reason the higher end has not fallen as much yet is because the govt began intervening in the housing market right as the declines were about to hit the mid to higher-end homes. Declines come in waves, and go from the least desirable to the most desirable in a RE decline. We were about to get hit here until the Fed dropped rates in their “emergency” actions and then we got all the foreclosure moratoriums, loan mods, refis, etc.
What do you think would have happened to prices here if not for all the govt intervention? Personally, I think we’d be at 2001-2002 (nominal) levels by now. BTW, this isn’t just happening in coastal North County. The same pattern has been seen all across the country and around the world, which tells me this is not due to the fundamentals of a particular region, but rather due to monetary policy and govt intervention.
