My clients just closed on this cool Highland Park home

Clients Alison and Jason just bought this very cool 3+2 Highland Park bungalow.  Although the house is almost a hundred years old, it has been expanded and extensively rehabbed.  Even though I tried to interest them in other areas, the buyers had their hearts set on a Highland Park home.  They had made really good offers on three other houses prior to this one, and were quite philosophical about their previous disappointments.  Needless to say, we were delighted and went out for bubbly the night we learned that the seller had accepted our offer. (By "we," I mean me and Ali.  Jason is working out of town and has only seen the house once, for ten minutes, after it was already in escrow.  Risky? Yes, but in this hot market, none of us wanted to wait.)

My favorite thing about the house is its stellar location.  You can see and walk to the Occidental College campus from the street.  It's also very easy walk to The York, which is a very cool pub.  I hope Ali and Jason have many wonderful years here.

Local home prices jump and sales fall. Yes, again. Or still.

L.A. Times sez: the shortage of available homes for sale here in Los Angeles has caused housing prices to jump.  See the article here.  The same number of buyers chasing limited choices tends to bid up prices, of course.  When will there be more inventory and when will the rise in prices end? According to the article, it won't be this year.  Home prices are expected to rise about 4% by year's end. Photo credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times.

Prices of homes for sale increased locally, as if you didn't know

In case you did not see the L.A. Times, home prices increased 24.7% year over year.  And not just for homes in Burbank, Toluca Lake or Studio City either -- this is an average of five counties.  L.A. county home prices increased 30.2% to an average of $410,000 per house.  Here's the link to the article.

But you already know this: LA Times says home sales in Los Angeles are up

In case you didn't read the Los Angeles Times today, here's an article talking about how home sales and home prices have significantly increased in Los Angeles the past year.  Some quotes from the article:

The median home price for the region was $321,000, up from $315,000 the two prior months and a nearly 17% increase over $275,000 in November 2011.

and

All-cash purchases, many by deep-pocketed investors, also remain unusually high.

Home prices going up?

LATimes posted an article about rising home prices today.  Click here for the link.  Of course, the increases are miniscule and concentrated in the north of California.  But still... Prediction: we are going to see more headlines like this, at least through the rest of the quarter.  Inventory is short and a lot of buyers want to take advantage of the still-low interest rates.

You know this already - prices are up

By the time you read this post, you will probably already have read this story from today's LAT about home prices rising in the first part of the year.  If you've been out looking, that won't surprise you.  What surprises me here is how some of the industry statistician-experts refuse to say die (or is that "live") re the r.e. market's downturn.  Sure, there could be another downturn.  But from what I see in the markets I serve, there's nothing indicating that will happen anytime soon.

LA Times says home prices are up, but don't just read the headline

Today's L.A. Times has a story in it's business section that states home prices have risen 10% in So. Cal over the last year. But wait!  In L.A. County, the rise has only been 5.4%.  Still, not bad, and better than where a lot of experts said we'd be at this point.

Good news and bad news from L.A. Times

Yes, I'm back to being a clipping service.  First, the good news from the front page of today's L.A. Times: home prices in the Southland rose 4% in December.  And, most experts agree that even though the economy is soft, the worst is over for area housing.  I agree, as long as interest rates stay low.

Now for the bad news: restrictions on FHA loans have tightened.  A seller can no longer pay up to 6% of a buyer's closing costs -- the amount has been reduced to 3%.  Buyers will now need to come up with more cash at closing.  Required FICO scores have risen (actually, that's a good thing) and the upfront mortgage premium has risen to 2.25% of the loan.  It was 1.75%.  That will reduce the affordability of many FHA loans.

From today's L.A. Times: Realtor org says prices will rise next year

L.A. Times clipping service here! Today's business section has the following article: State median home price to increase next year, Realtors group says. This is from the California Association of Realtors, and they predict a 3.3% rise in prices next year. Candidly, since this is statewide, it really has very little meaning for each individual neighborhood. But anyway, here are a few other quotes that I agree with [emphasis mine]: the number of purchases will decline slightly because there will be fewer foreclosures available and It will continue to be hard to sell higher-priced houses because values have dropped and financing is hard to get.

LA Times reports a home price surge

As if you don't have enough reading material, here's an article that will be in tomorrow's L.A. Times. Thanks to client Erik for forwarding it to me. The fact that home prices have risen will come as no surprise to anybody who has been out looking for a home lately. As much as I respect Peter Hong's journalism (he's the main blogger at the L.A. Times' real estate blog, LaLand), I question his conclusion that it is the higher-priced homes selling that's raising the median. (Correction 7/16: This is not Hong's conclusion; he is reporting Dataquick's conclusion.) My take would be that all single family homes are selling, and often in multiple offers, which tend to drive prices up. And since there are many buyers chasing few properties (see the Burbank Leader article about dwindling supply, below) well...high demand/low supply tends to make prices rise.

Hong points out an issue that I think we should all be mindful of: "Though lower-priced, repossessed properties have dominated home sales this year, they did not comprise the majority of homes sold in June. Last month, 45% of homes sold had been through foreclosure, the lowest percentage since July 2008. That trend could reverse, [emphasis mine] however, if a large backlog of Southern California homes in the foreclosure process end up being repossessed. A state foreclosure moratorium and voluntary efforts by lenders have slowed the rate of repossessions even as the number of borrowers failing to make mortgage payments is on the rise."