Testimonials for Blog

  The Bay Area’s housing market staged a breakthrough in July, reaching the highest level of sales for any month in nearly seven years, according to a report Thursday. The housing recovery has been bogged down by a lack of inventory. This month’s report indicates that is no longer the case, as sellers respond to double-digit price increases.   July’s median sale price of $562,000 for all types of homes is up 33.5 percent across the nine-county Bay Area in 12 months, according to real estate information company DataQuick, meaning that homeowners who have been sitting on the sidelines for

The U.S. housing recovery continues to make gains. New home sales have surged 38% since last year, hitting a five-year high in June, according to the newest figures from the Commerce Department. And despite a monthly drop in activity, sales of previously owned homes remain 15% higher than last year as well, according to the National Association of Realtors. If housing in the first six months of 2013 could be summed up in one sentence, it would go something like this: Inventory is painfully tight, sales activity is surging and home prices have jumping.Now real estate experts are sounding off

The red-hot Southern California housing market finally got a dose of cold water. The region’s median home price in July remained flat from a month earlier, at $385,000, real estate firm DataQuick said Wednesday. The figures followed a record-setting June, when the median price rose 4.6% over the previous month and 28% year-over-year, the highest percentage since DataQuick started tracking the statistic in 1989. The cooling off came with a surge in the number of sales to an eight-year high, indicating a growing supply of homes that could steady the market after this year’s frenzy. Rising mortgage rates may also

In June, home sales with equity value jumped again to their highest level in over a year. At the same time, a large drop in distressed sales, fueled by a 200% drop in bank owned sales showed that the real estate market is growing a healthy, wide spread recovery. “These are the types of good numbers everyone can be happy with,” said Chris Pollinger, Senior Vice-President of Sales for First Team. “Bank owned sales this time last year represented more than 1 in every 5 sales. Today that number is down to less than 1 in 15. That just shows

In 2012, the housing market got a boost from the long-term stability of mortgage rates. The Federal Reserve’s stimulus measures helped keep borrowing costs near record lows for much of last year, and through the first few months of 2012. Low rates helped bring home buyers off the sidelines and into the market, driving home prices north across much of the country. But mortgage rate trends shifted significantly in May 2013. That’s when Federal Reserve officials met for one of their Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. These meetings are a regular occurrence, taking place eight times a year. But

While judicial foreclosure auctions jumped 34% between June 2012 and last month, national foreclosure activity decreased 14% in June from the previous month, down to its lowest level since December 2006, according to locally based online foreclosure-data source RealtyTrac. The number of foreclosure filings decreased 19% from the previous six months and was down 23% from the first half of 2012. Judicial foreclosure auctions were up less than 1% from May, but up 34% from June 2012, the firm also reports. Washington was the only Western state where bank repossessions and foreclosure auctions had jumped. “Halfway through 2013, it is

  Trulia, a leading online marketplace for home buyers, sellers, renters, and real estate professionals, today released the latest findings from the Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor. These indices are the earliest leading indicators available of trends in home prices and rents. Based on the for-sale homes and rentals listed on Trulia, these monitors take into account changes in the mix of listed homes and reflect trends in prices and rents for similar homes in similar neighborhoods through June 30, 2013. To read the full report, see here. Asking Home Prices Show No Signs of Cooling Off

For the Monterey County real-estate industry, it’s game on. Key indicators across the board are showing a vibrancy not seen since the financial market crash of 2008. More homeowners are seeing equity return as fewer mortgages are underwater. Home sale prices are back to within a whisker’s width of where they were in 2008 at the start of the real-estate crash. And homes going on the market are attracting multiple offers and are staying on the market only half as long as they were five years ago. “Right now a listing can almost mean an assured sale,” said Sandy Haney,

    Are you finally off the fence and doing a little home shopping? As the market heats up and sellers regain control, here are a couple of trends to consider. Low mortgage rates The 30-year fixed mortgage rate onZillow Mortgage Marketplace is currently hovering near historic lows, at 3.78 percent. And while rates have crept up this past week, they’re not going to skyrocket suddenly, says Erin Lantz, director of mortgages at Zillow. “Even if the Federal Reserve starts to scale back its stimulus program, the Fed will still help keep rates low for the remainder of the year in order to

Distressed home sales in California in April declined to their lowest level since February 2008, according to the California Association of Realtors. Distressed sales fell to 24.4 percent, down from 27.9 percent in March and 45.8 percent in April last year. CAR also said the share of lender-owned sales fell to single digit percentages for the first time since late 2007 – 9.2 percent in April, compared with 10.2 percent in March and 24.3 percent in April 2012. In Sacramento County, CAR said the share of distressed single-family home sales in April was 32 percent, down from 37 percent in March and