Resisting Change - FTHB Market Update

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another SoCal First Time Buyer Market Update. My name is Stephen Meade, I'm your host here with domicile real estate, located here in Long Beach, we service, orange and Los Angeles counties. This is our market update just for first time homebuyers. And we're going to talk a little bit about resisting change. And I think a lot of times as human beings, we are almost pre programmed to want the status quo to resist change. Unfortunately, the housing market is always changing. And that can be anything from getting tighter, getting looser, but I'm also talking about the bigger changes. And one of the things we're noticing that a lot of first time homebuyers do is they think about the way the housing market was, and not just was last year or two years ago, but the way the housing market was maybe 10 years ago, and 20 years ago and say, Why can't I have the same market that people had 10 or 20 years ago. And the reality is, that is really a pretty fruitless exercise, for example, you know, you can dream about those homes that were, you know, had ocean views and Dana Point that were available for $500,000 All day long, but that's not going to make them come back.

And I think a lot of times people allow comparison, to be the thief of joy. You know, in the end, this shows up as not just a healthy fear of what's risky, but a fear of changing at all. And they don't like the changes, and they want to keep things the same. But that's not possible. So if you are a first time or an entry level buyer watching this, I'd imagine at some point or another, you have felt this way, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not. And by the way, your feelings aren't alone. I remember, you know, when I bought my first home, I look back to the people who bought 10 years before and thought, you know, why can't I get what they get right in the fact is, what things are worth and these things change.

Also areas change. You know, 2030 years ago, the San Fernando Valley was, you know, out there today. That's, that's right in the heart of Los Angeles to a lot of people. So things change. Anyhow, let's go ahead and get started. We've got some market statistics for you. I'm excited to share those. We're gonna go ahead and load those up here. So let's see, gosh, we're not getting these are not showing up. Let me see what I can do here to get that to show up. Or you lose like seeing a blank screen there. So okay. Let me go ahead and see if I can get that worked up. I know we are. We are not seeing that. So I think I'm going to have that ready for you here in just a second. Give me a moment.

And I think we're going to try that again. So let's go ahead and try it again. There we go. Now we've got some charts for you. Okay, so the first thing we're looking at, is what's going on with prices. And we've got some mixed news for you, depending on whether you are looking at entry level single family homes or entry level condos. You know, as we see this push to affordability, we're seeing his condo numbers actually spiked a little bit last two weeks, whereas our single family home numbers have gone down. Remember, this is reflective of where prices were four to six weeks ago, not necessarily prices are now if we continue on to our payment, though, we've got a little bit of good news on that entry level single family home front, we have dropped below $6,000. So reality is we are not very far off where we were a year ago. A year ago, we were at 5890. This year, we are at 5951.

So I'm excited to see that number ease just a little bit. Our condo number however, is up and what does that tell us when we see that? It means that people really want to get in even at more entry level price points. And that new entry level is pushing up a little bit. We look at what income is required. You can see about $145,000 or until single family home and $116,000 branch level condo definitely makes you wonder are you better off splitting house with somebody rather than trying to buy a condo on your own? In interesting discussion. We've actually helped many clients make that decision if that's you. And then if we look at our absorption rate, like what does this tell us? Right? We're we're seeing both a little bit of an influx of listings. And we're also seeing a decline in those purchases as a result of some of the interest rate activity. However, are these easy numbers? No, they are not still being at 79% and 74% respectively for our single family home an entry level condo, these are still competitive markets for buyers.

I think you'll find, especially the farther under a million dollars you are, the more competitive that market is. We look at our total inventory, we did see that it has gone up a little bit. But unfortunately, especially look here versus our entry level single family home. I mean, look, we are below 1500 units. And last year, we were almost at 2500 units available at this point in time. I mean, that's a huge, huge reduction in available inventory. That is why you are seeing prices are not moving a whole lot. I think if you're one of those people waiting, you know, for some kind of crash in the streets, it's just not likely to happen, we just don't have the right ingredients to produce that level of a crash. If you're looking at a 14 day still active, that is a little bit of good news, it says the markets are being a little less competitive, but not as less competitive as they were all through last year. So it's a little bit better than two weeks ago, but not really a whole lot better than it's been for the year for most of us.

Now, if we look at our relative supply of homes, and what I like about this is this isn't just the number of homes available, but it's the number of weeks of homes available. Again, we are still with tighter inventory than last year, or rather about the same for our entry level condo. And we are down a little bit on our entry level single family. Oh, but I mean, these are not huge amounts of inventory. We had a lot more kind of through the summer of last year. So you know, what, what's the overall message? Right? What are we talking about here? I think, you know, I'm of the belief that I have yet to have clients who really wish they would have waited an appreciable amount of time to buy a home, almost every single one of them have bought said we wish we had done it sooner. And you know, homeownership is a long term game. This is not a short term proposition. We're talking about the trajectory of your finances over the next 1020 years. We're not just talking about what happens in the next year, the next two years, which obviously I wish I could predict that, you know, but if you talk to anybody who says they can predict that, I promise you they do not know because if they knew they would not be telling you. Anyhow, that's all I've got for you this week. You know, we're seeing a little bit more inventory.

Again, the markets a little less competitive. So maybe if you're a person who's kind of been poking in the market, now might be a good time to kind of go all out. It's a relative low point. But to be honest, it's not that much less competitive, that it's been it's not suddenly there are tons of deals and it's still more competitive than it was last year we're just not seeing the market change necessarily in the way that people want. I think people are expecting some kind of dramatic change in the market and we're just not seeing that or seeing even signs of that coming to fruition. Anyhow, thanks so much for watching questions, comments, we love them. Do not forget to like subscribe and and hit that notification bell obviously if you're a first time homebuyer or if you're somebody would like to be a first time homebuyer it's never too early to chat. We would love to talk with you definitely reach out to us if you are in the Los Angeles Orange County areas. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you again real soon.