October Sales Stats

Check out these stats for Laguna Beach in October. And don't forget to Contact us if you are looking to buy or sell your house.

October LB Stats

California House Prices Projected To Jump 7.9%

As seen in the Orange County Register:

U.S. house prices will stop falling in March and are projected to be up 4.6% by August 2010, Santa Ana-based data cruncher First American CoreLogic predicted.

State	Aug. ‘10 gain
Maine	12.1%
New Hampshire	11.6%
California	7.9%
Florida	7.3%
New Jersey	6.8%
Idaho	5.8%
Connecticut	5.7%
Rhode Island	5.3%
Hawaii	5.2%
North Dakota	4.9%
U.S.	4.6%

In California, the rate of appreciation will be even higher: up 7.9% from this past August.

If true, California will have the nation’s third-highest appreciation rate, trailing Maine (projected to be up 12.1%) and New Hampshire (up 11.6%).

Florida’s appreciation rate is projected to be number four in the nation at 7.3% next August.

In addition, First American reported:

• U.S. house prices dropped 10.1% in August from a year earlier.
• California ranked fourth in price drops with a year-over-year decline of 12.9% in August.
• The biggest drops occurred in Nevada (-24.4%), Arizona (-19.5%) and Florida (-16.8%).
• Excluding the sale of bank-owned homes and short sales (homes selling for less than their debt), price drops were less severe. U.S. prices for non-distressed homes were down just 6.2%.
• In California non-distressed home prices were down 7.9% from August 2008.

O.C. home-price bottom forecast for 2010

As seen in the Orange County Register:

Orange County median home prices are expected to decline an additional 6.9% this year, dropping to 2002 levels before a mild rebound begins sometime next year, a forecast included in a Wells Fargo Bank report says.

But the rebound’s appreciation rates are expected to be in the low-to-mid, single-digit percentage-point gains through 2012.

The forecast by the Rosen Consulting Group is contained in Wells Fargo’s “Special Report on the Outlook for Housing,” released in February. The report projects that nationwide home prices will hit bottom sometime between mid-2009 to early 2010, and that price gains after that will be at or below the rate of inflation.

“The majority of the country is in a multi-year housing correction. As we suggested in our earlier housing market outlooks, the regions of the country that experienced the greatest price appreciation during the housing boom are already experiencing the largest correction and the most prolonged as prices retreat to more reasonable levels.”

The report provides housing forecasts for regions across the nation, citing the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain states and Texas as having the strongest housing markets. California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada, meanwhile, lead the nation in foreclosures and declining home prices, the report said.

As for Orange County, the forecast states:

“Recovery is expected to begin in 2010, with prices up 2.7 percent, followed by potential increases of 4.5 percent in 2011 and 6.8 percent in 2012.”

Berkeley-based Rosen Group identified the Inland Empire as “one of the weakest markets in the country,” predicting a 7.7 percent price decline there this year, the report said. Los Angeles home prices are forecast to drop 6.8% this year, while San Diego prices are expected to fall 7.1%.

The report says that federal stimulus plans may help the housing market, but to what extent remains to be seen:

“Intervention by President Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve, as well as the lenders, including banks, savings & loans, and credit unions, may alleviate the crisis somewhat. The Obama administration has pledged aggressive action, but has yet to decide what strategy or combination of strategies will be deployed.”