September 2007 Santa Clarita Real Estate Report

As always, coming at you with facts and figures for our local Santa Clarita real estate market. Things seem to be picking up recently. I am getting quite a bit of interest in Santa Clarita short sales, and foreclosure deals (REO property). The listing inventory of homes for sale in Santa Clarita has been very steady, and actually decreasing in fair amounts over the last month. This of course is helpful, and provides somewhat of a guard against dramatically falling prices. The fewer buyer options, the more stable prices can be. But don’t get me wrong! There is still a large supply of homes for sale in Santa Clarita compared to how many homes are being sold! It’s just not as bad as it could be right now, or has been in months past. The most interesting stat that is not shown below is this: If we keep selling homes at the current pace per month, it would take 16 months to eliminate the current supply of homes (which ended at 2,493 in Sept 07), if we are only closing 157 a month! OUCH. The number of homes listed isn’t “horrible”, like I said, it’s been worse, the ugly stat is how many are actually selling right now.

On to the September 2007 Santa Clarita Real Estate Statistics:

New Listings: 528
Total Active Listings: 2,493
Average Days On Market: 91
- Valencia and Stevenson Ranch had the lowest days on market results at 81/83
Average List Price For Active Listings: $610,000
Expiration Of Active Listings: 199
- As we approach the holiday season, many homes will go unsold, and will expire after being listed for around the past 3-6 months+.
New Escrows Opened: 155
New Open Escrows Average Days On Market: 76
New Open Escrows Average List Price: $574,000
New Escrows Closed: 157
Average Final Sales Price: $551,000
- If the average list price was $574,000, and the average final sales price was $551,000, that should give you a decent barometer as to how much the average seller has to come down in price when negotiating
CO-OP Sales That Took Place: 128
- Co-op is a sale where there are two different agents, one representing the seller, and one for the buyer. Over 80% of the sales that took place, were a result of another Realtor bringing in the buyer
Sales At List Price: 30
- That equates to just 19.1% of sales took place at their list price, or 80% of closed sales were negotiated at a lower price than asking price. If you’re selling now, you’ll likely end up in the 80% camp!