California’s home prices rose; sales declined in December

According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, California’s home prices rose while the number of home sales declined to a six-year low in December. What does this mean to you, the seller? It indicates that there is still a limited supply of homes on the market, which is good news for sellers, who can ask top dollar for their property.
An estimated 34,949 new and resale houses and condos were purchased in our state last month. That number is the lowest level for a December since 2007. Meanwhile, prices rose by 1.4% compared to November.
Let’s look at what happened in 2013: we started out with a robust year for the state’s housing market with prices rising rapidly amidst the belief that the bottom of the market had passed.
In the second half of the year, we noticed a cooling trend, which is typical for that time of year but made more dramatic since buyers had trouble affording the higher prices.
According to DataQuick, by the end of the year, home prices in the Southland rose by 2.6%, which is 22.3% higher than the previous year. Since 1978, DataQuick has been a recognized leader in the property information industry, providing products and solutions to mortgage originators and lenders, real estate investors, mortgage insurance companies, credit unions, title companies, real estate companies, data resellers, and small businesses. The service is just one of the many references I use to keep my finger on the pulse of the Santa Barbara area real estate market. Constantly in touch with that heartbeat, I was consistently rated in the top 1% of Sotheby’s International Realty® agents nationwide for over two decades prior to my current association with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties.