Maybe if March sales had come in at the 20 year average or even slightly below the average, but they didn’t. They actually came in 59.2% below the average March since 1988.

This will almost certainly be the worst year for Orange County RE sales, since DataQuick started tracking these numbers 20 years ago. Quite alarming in the face of a once booming economy and population increases.

First, although some Realtors may think they can “jaw” the market up, the reality is market forces are beyond your or my control. As real estate agents, we really need the market to find whatever a normal level would be. The “best” market, from an agent’s viewpoint, is a neutral market where prices are where they should be and there’s about an equal number of sellers and buyers.

Second, we feel that year-over-year and month-over-month statistics are both useful and have their place. You can’t get the big picture without both. Month-over-month is more current, but, as you correctly pointed out, Y-o-Y puts M-o-M in perspective.

Yes, March closings were up from February, but they were up only half as much as they would be in an “average” market.

We’re still in a huge downturn, but we may be nearing the bottom. Or this may just be a typical early spring bump.

We work with both buyers and sellers, and we’re not trying to push the market one way or another. Just trying to give our perspective on what’s going on in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Lakewood, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Cypress, and throughout Southern California. Even in Irvine.

Feedback like yours helps us clarify things. Thanks, Lee.

Perhaps we’ve overemphasized month-over-month in this post because everyone else was primarily focused on year-over-year.

The DQ median indicates that single family homes declined 5k in March … there was no “modest firming” for this class of home.

There are plenty of buyers out there right now, actually. Our biggest problem has more to do with the lenders. We sold our last listing in 3 days.

Properly staged, priced, and marketed homes are selling. See”How to Sell Your Southern California home for top dollar in 30 days.“

OK, so sales down 41.4% isn’t dead? What would qualify as “dead” for you? Negative 60%? 80%?

Or would it have to be zero sales to be officially dead?

We’re in a housing DEPRESSION. Worst since the 1930’s. So good luck finding the light at the end of the tunnel.

Good quotes, especially that last one from Dunn. (I guess most Home Builders are Dunn about now!)

Seriously, it is slow for spring, but it isn’t dead. When everybody was yelling about the terrible January numbers, I was about the only one out there saying, “Hey, part of this is the time of year. Things will pick up over the next two months.”

We’ve never been shy about this being the normal, seasonal cycle. See “Our 2 real estate market cycles.”

We’re not out of the woods yet. But we may be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Hopefully it’s not an oncoming train.

You compare the 28 or 29 days of February to the 31 days of March? You disregard the fact that March home sales are ALWAYS higher than February home sales?

Nice.

Brain power tour de force!

Go directly to the DQ report, the DQ report itself: . “A total of 12,808 new and resale houses and condos sold in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Orange counties in March. That was up 18.8 percent from 10,777 the previous month but down 41.4 percent from 21,856 in March 2007″

I predicted was that DQ would show that March closings would be up from February closings. Last time I checked, 12,808 was higher than 10,777. Weaker than normal, but up nonetheless.

We also predicted year over year would be down–that one would be hard to miss.

As for firming in price, OC’s $506k March median was actually up from DQs last 4 week OC reports, which both came in at $500,000. Again, I believe $506,000 is up from $500,000.