April 2009

Has the OC Housing Market Bottomed Out?

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 8:17pm. 102 Views, 0 Comments.

The Orange County Register reported today that the median price of a home in OC climbed for the second consecutive month.  The March median was $385,000, up from $375,000 in February and $370,000 in January. Another bullish sign is the continued climb in the number of homes sold.  March was the ninth consecutive month of year-over-year sales increases, with 2,433 homes sold - a 46% jump from March of 2008.

There are still plenty of concerns in the market, with homes priced over $500,000 selling slowly, and short sales accounting for about 30% of the homes on the market.  One interesting wrinkle is that bank owned homes have become a scarce commodity.  Just a few months ago bank owned properties also made up about a third of the transactions, but today…