21 Apr Southern California Favors Home Sellers As Inventory Stays Stagnant
Southern California inventory sits at super low levels, and with the busy real estate market right around the corner, sellers are in the driver’s seat throughout much of the region. Zillow, a real estate date website, recently released a report on the top 10 buyer’s and seller’s markets in the nation, ranking Los Angeles as the No. 4 markets favoring the home seller, according to a recent article by the Los Angeles Times.
Quick sales, rising median home values and diminishing inventory in Southern California are steering the market toward favoring sellers, who are often able to snag a deal on their homes above the asking price. At a more granular level, Eagle Rock Canyon Country in Santa Clarita, Tujunga, Mar Vista and Valencia are the top seller markets in the Los Angeles area.
“The real estate data in markets on both coasts are telling markedly different stories,” Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said. “Real estate has always been local, and as the spring market gains momentum, this old adage will only become more pronounced.”
Los Angles Housing Market Breakdown
According to Altos Research, a California-based real estate analytics company, the median single-family home value in Los Angeles has been on the rise since March, looking at the weighted 90-day average. As of April 11, it was marked at $532,358. The seven-day average shows even larger price gains going into the second half of April.
The seven-day average was posted at more than $609K after rising since the start of the year. Most recently, the seven-day average was marked just below the yearly high, and the spring market is just getting started. This number is expected to continue to climb if inventory stays low. Especially if demand stays high.
Further reiterating the fact that Southern California and Los Angeles is in a seller’s market, Altos’ Market Action Index measures the conditions of the market to determine whether it favors buyers or sellers with a neutral value of 30. As of April 11, it sat at 41.94, strongly in favor of sellers.
The index comes off a weekly incline, and the market has been in favor of sellers for so long that the lowest point it reached was just below the 35 mark.
Inventory in Los Angeles has been flat for the past several weeks, as the amount of available homes for sale entered the year declining. In the past year, the most saturated market featured just more than 2,682 properties, which was around October.
There are currently about 1,626 available homes in Los Angeles, and the amount of days on market is dipping down, meaning that buyers aren’t taking their time finding a new home. As of April 11, the average home was on the market for about 89 days. The shortest time homes were on the market was in November 2013 when home sellers only had their homes listed for about 71 days.
As home seller confidence builds and home builders recognize the opportunities within the Southern California market, inventory will loosen a bit and it will return to a healthier, more stable level.
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