Big Bear Real Estate Monday Market Update For 3/2/2009

Below is your weekly update for the Big Bear real estate market as of 3/2/2009.

A few notes about the market –

The residential inventory is now under 900 homes for sale in Big Bear. The perception is that there are so many homes for sale.  The realty is that number in Big Bear is decreasing.

The inventory is decreasing for several reasons –

1.  Sellers who cannot sell, or do not want to sell, for today’s low prices are taking their homes off of the market and will try to wait it out.

2.  The banks are slowing down the foreclosure process and are actively working on keeping people in their homes, rather than taking them back.  We will see if this works but it is keeping some inventory off of the market which would otherwise come for sale.

3.  With the lower prices & lower interest rates, sales are picking up.  This is taking inventory off of the market naturally.

Home sales for the year now stand at 99 closed sales. Compare that number to 64 closed sales during the first two months of 2008 and you can see that home sales are picking up in Big Bear, about 54% higher.  Pending home sales remained nearly the same as last week so buyer activity appears to be leveling out, and not necessarily on the rise.

There were 13 homes that went into escrow the past week, 8 (62%) of which were bank owned foreclosures.  Of the 14 homes that sold during the week, 7 (50%) were bank owned and 3 (21%) were short sales.  Just 4 (29%) were organic sales.  The price range of sales was from $50,000 for a cabin in Baldwin Lake up to $700,000 for a dock rights home in the gated Eagles Knoll Estates area of Big Bear.

Of the 28 homes that hit the market this week in Big Bear, 10 (35%) were either bank owned or short sales. So while bank owned and short sale properties are dominating what is selling in this market, they still only make up a small amount of what is coming on the market.  Conversely, the majority of properties on the market are organic, Mom & Pop type sellers, but very few of them are selling.  Shows you what buyers are looking for.  If you are trying to sell, you have to price it like the selling competition, in this case, the bank owned properties.

There was one new vacant lot to close escrow, located in Moonridge on the golf course.  Other than home sales, the rest of the real estate market remains pretty stagnant.

See last week’s Big Bear real estate market numbers.

Big Bear Foreclosure Update For The Week

There were 5 properties in Big Bear that went back to the back last week.  Expect to see these come on the market soon. Sometimes it is just a matter of days while other times it will take the bank several months to get the property on the market, especially if the have to do some repairs, clean up, or eviction of personal property or tenants.  We have a listing at 154 Poplar in the Fox Farm area that went back to the bank two weeks ago, and it was on the market within one week.

Below are the Big Bear properties that are set up to be auctioned for sale over the next week.  If you are really looking for a deal, and you have the cash available, one of these could be that property.

That’s it for this week.  Still working on the foreclosure search but I should have some charts for the notice of defaults, notice of sales, and other foreclosure related stats for the Big Bear area later this week.

Be sure to check back here every Monday for your Big Bear Market Update or sign up to get this emailed to you every week.

* Information updated weekly, courtesy of the Big Bear MLS. This update includes MLS data from areas including Big Bear Lake, Big Bear City, Moonridge, Fox Farm, Sugarloaf, Erwin Lake, Fawnskin & Baldwin Lake. It does not include data from areas in the Big Bear MLS that are located outside of the Big Bear area or data on properties in Big Bear that are listed in other MLS systems.