Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Local Market Update

From our local real estate agent:


Ichabod said...
As of 10:15 am Tuesday, November 27:In Kern County on the MLS (Bakersfield Association of Realtors), there are 4,920 residential properties listed for sale. Of that, 797 (16%) are bank owned REOs, and 648 (13%) are short sales. Short sales have a horrible time selling because the lenders take FOREVER to approve them. I had a client submit an offer for a short sale property in August. We didn't hear a counter until the end of October! We quickly submitted a counter that was verbally accepted, and then waited for a response until my buyer got impatient and cancelled halfway through November! I finally heard from the lender the day after he cancelled- "we are about to submit your offer for final approval." They held on to the offer for almost three weeks and NEVER submitted it! I called that lady and e-mailed her on a daily basis- toward the end three times a day. Crazy!

4 comments:

hankmeister said...

what is the normal monthly and yearly volume of sales?
2004 and 2005 should probably be excluded from normal. Also, what about the paper lots? I've heard a number of 36,000 lots in tentative thrown around.

Bakersfield Bubble said...

I would say 225 sales per month (average). Which means we have almost 2 years worth of inventory.

I was always told anything over 6 months and the market is in bad shape, not sure what shape 2 years represents :).

Funny Circus Bears said...

L.A. in the early 90's, the epicenter of the last housing earthquake, had 20 months of inventory at its worst point.

And this is just starting.

hankmeister said...

I'm assuming that 225 per month (2700 per year) excludes new houses...