RSM and O.C. Homes Selling More Quickly

The latest Orange County home inventory report from Steve Thomas and ReportsOnHousing.com—data as of August 2 includes these thoughts …

13% fewer homes have come on the market this year compared to last year, and 20% fewer compared to two years ago. As a matter of fact, through July, the number of homes placed on the market is the lowest since prior to 2000. In 2006, there were 70% more homes placed on the market compared to 2012. With a mix of fewer homes placed on the market and robust demand, inventories have sunk to unprecedented levels.

Thomas notes that Orange County’s total active listing inventory has dropped for 14 months straight to 5,238—5,865 fewer than a year ago and just 326 above Orange County’s cyclical mid-boom bottom of March 2005.

Thomas’ signature housing measurement is his “market time” benchmark. It tracks how many months it theoretically takes to sell all the inventory in the local MLS for-sale listings at the current pace of pending deals being made. By this Thomas logic, as of August 2—we see …

• Market time of 1.48 months for Orange County buyers to gobble up all homes for sale at the current pace vs. 1.54 months two weeks ago vs. 3.65 months a year ago vs. 3.84 months two years ago.
• Of the 8 Orange County pricing slices Thomas tracks, 5 had faster market time vs. 2 weeks ago; and all 8 improved over a year ago.
• Orange County homes listed for under a million bucks have a market time of 1.13 months vs. 5.62 months for homes listed for more than $1 million.
• So, basically, it is five times harder to sell a million-dollar-plus residence!
• And just so you know, the million-dollar market represents 30% of all homes listed and 8% of all homes that entered into escrow in the past 30 days.