Thanks for clicking. I’m starting to hear a lot of positive press about the housing market “housing is on the upswing” with a few “housing still in the middle of a big mess” articles.

So how are we really doing? 

Well, that depends if you are buying, selling or investing and it depends on the zip code in which you do it.

The best way to describe the housing market (and this perspective comes from a fairly micro-local perspective Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City) is that sales are slowly inching up, median sale prices is showing signs of improvement and I’d say it is fair to say yes the market is recovering.

Dissenting it further, the lack of inventory which could be including bank owned homes and short sales (just not being listed by the banks and distressed sellers because banks would like brighter days and upside down sellers having nowhere to go) means that generally speaking there are less lower end distressed sales. The percentage of sales that are bank owned and short sales vrs total sales is dropping.

And since people pay more for well maintained homes vrs a bank owned property for example that is a factor that is driving up the median sale price.

Now does that mean your home is going up in value on its own. Absolutely not. It just means that the average selling price of homes being sold is higher due to less lower end sales and that is about it.

What may be raising the value of your home is a lack of competing homes for sale in a given price range. Look, if you owned a home in Sherman Oaks or Studio City located in either Dixie Canyon or Carpenter school district ad you had a very well cared for, remodeled 3 or 4 bedroom home with a great layout and perfect for all and in peoples searching they found “nothing like yours” they are going to pay to get it.

In some cases the amount of competing listings in a specific school district in a 50-100k range (that are clean, remodeled and turnkey) can sometimes be no competing listings.

And since couples or families who want to get in and start a family, or need more space are looking at the lowest interest rates we may ever see in our lifetime, people are buying and it’s causing multiple offers in many cases.

To answer your question, it could be accurate to say that your house is worth a little more money today than it has been in the past 2-3 years.

f you have questions about where you stand in the market place or are looking for homes to purchase, call us, we might need to look off market.