Thread: Time to buy Southern California real estate -- if you can

Cash-only home deals hit record levels

Written by Lily Leung
12:34 p.m., June 18, 2012

Also of interest
Single-family resales at nearly 7-year high
SD's April home sales hit 6-year high

Consumers who bought homes with cash had another record showing in San Diego County in May, the latest DataQuick numbers say.

The share of cash deals rose to 33.3 percent, breaking the previous peak of 33 percent set in April. They made up 26.5 percent of all sales a year ago. May's percentage of cash buyers surpassed that of the Southern California region, which was 31.3 percent.

Those who buy homes with cash are mainly investors, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage, but there are other groups, too.

"It's people who retire or are near retirement who want to sell big houses and buy smaller houses," LePage said. "Or parents buying houses near universities, paying with cash...and then you've got wealthy people buying luxury properties in cash."

Throughout Southern California, cash buyers paid a median of $232,500 in May, up from $225,000 in April and $220,000 in May 2011. The median price for all types of homes combined in San Diego County in May was $335,000.

Related: Homes sales hottest in these 10 ZIP codes

Here's a breakdown of other important numbers to track:

Foreclosure resales: These are homes that were foreclosed upon in the last year and were later resold. DataQuick says 21.3 percent of total resales fit into this category in May, the lowest it's been since October 2007, when it was 20.8 percent. A year ago, the share of resales that were foreclosures was 30.9 percent.

Short sales: An estimated 19.8 percent of total resales in May were short sales, down from 20.7 percent in April but up from 18.4 percent a year ago.

When comparing May 2012 to May 2012, sales of San Diego homes:

Below $200,000 were up 5.6 percent.

Below $300,000 were up 10.3 percent.

Below $400,000 were up 16.4 percent.

Between $300,000 to $800,000 were up 28.8 percent.

LePage, of DataQuick, says those numbers signal "strong evidence of move-up buyers," likely folks with home equity who have been on the sidelines for some time and are now taking the homebuying plunge.

Have story tips, a hot property listing or a question? Email me: lily.leung@utsandiego.com

Cash-only home deals hit record levels | UTSanDiego.com

Published: Jan. 27, 2013 Updated: Jan. 28, 2013 10:56 a.m.

Lansner: Hot property isn't just an O.C. trend

By JONATHAN LANSNER / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Orange County housing wasn't the only hot real estate last year.

Commercial property – a space typically played by huge investors – enjoyed a renaissance, too, across the nation and around the globe.

Commercial property – a space typically played by huge investors – enjoyed a renaissance across the nation and around the globe last year.

That advance is detailed in a study by SNLReal Estateof how Real Estate Investment Trusts, pools of commercial real estate sliced into small investments, fared last year.

Overall, SNL says U.S. REITs provided investors total returns – that's appreciation plus dividends – of 20.2 percent last year. That bested, among other markers, the S&P 500 index, a key stock benchmark, up 16 percent for 2012.

The hottest play in the American REIT world? Trusts focused on industrial properties, up 32 percent last year.

This real estate niche – owning factories and warehouses – isn't usually this sexy. But an overall rebound in the economy brought back demand for manufacturing and distribution facilities. Also, many operators of these businesses decided to use cheap mortgage rates as an opportunity to buy their own facilities.

Next hottest in the U.S. REIT world was retailing – trusts owning regional malls were up 29 percent; pools with smaller shopping centers rose 26 percent.

Owning store space in America still is a challenge. But the profits that retailing investors received in 2012 were more a statement that the outlook is less bleak than it had been previously – and that financial potential for top-flight shopping hubs is still good, at least for the medium term.

Health care REITs generated an average 20 percent gain for investors in 2012. As is the story with just about anything medical, investors like the fact that these properties – and their related medical business tenants – benefit from an aging population that will require more and more medical services.

REITs owning self-storage sheds did well, too. They were up 18 percent on average in 2012. This niche has been hot since the recession started because folks who lost their homes in the real estate downturn needed places to store their belongings as they downsized their lifestyles. Some experts now wonder if self-storage will cool as the economy heats up.

It's not just American real estate that's a hot property.

Standard & Poor's global review of real estate values shows that the rest of the globe actually surpassed the American upswing in commercial real estate returns.

S&P found average U.S. REIT returns for 2012 at 18 percent. Compare that with Europe's REITs, which were up 32 percent despite a troubled continental economy. Asia's real estate trusts produced 32 percent in total return. In so-called emerging economies, REITs betting on those markets produced an average 37 percent gain.

Investors bid up the same real estate niches globally as they did in the states. REITs owning industrial properties around the world produced 2012 gains of 36 percent. Retailing real estate trusts was good for 32 percent gains.

In many cases, these eye-catching gains are simply part of a real estate reversal that's merely bringing values back to the peak of a half-decade ago.

For example, S&P's index of all REIT performance around the globe over the past five years shows a collective gain of only 2 percent.

Still, 2012's big appetite for real estate – here and internationally – is another sign of growing confidence in an economic rebound.

Contact the writer: 949-777-6727 or jlansner@ocregister.com
^{http://www.ocregister.com/articles/percent-409468-real-estate.html}

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North Texas home sales for 2012 reach highest point since 2008

David Woo/Staff Photographer
A home for sale located at 5303 Morningside in Dallas, shown on Tuesday, July 30, 2012.

By STEVE BROWN
The Dallas Morning News Real Estate Editor
stevebrown@dallasnews.com
Published: 08 January 2013 11:24 PM

North Texas’ pre-owned home market ended 2012 with the best sales total in four years.

The area saw a 16 percent gain in the number of single-family homes sold through the Realtors’ multiple listing service for North Texas.

And median home sales prices in 2012 rose 8 percent from the year before, according to numbers released Tuesday by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M and the North Texas Real Estate Information Systems.

For all of last year, 75,207 pre-owned single-family homes were sold by real estate agents in North Texas. That’s up from just 63,832 sales at the worst of the housing market slowdown in 2010.

December home sales in the area were 10 percent higher than a year earlier with 5,658 houses sold through the MLS.

The local housing market rebound has occurred faster than many economists had predicted, largely because of a drop in properties on the market and fewer home foreclosures.

“I thought that 2012 would turn out to be an OK year, but it turned out to be a whole lot better,” said Dr. James Gaines, an economist with the Real Estate Center. “The market has turned, and it’s strengthening.”

Home sales in North Texas recovered to 12 percent below where they were at the top of the market in 2006, when more than 85,000 pre-owned single-family homes were sold by real estate agents.

Sales might have been stronger in the final months of the year if there had been more properties to sell.

At the end of 2012, there was only a 3.5-month supply of pre-owned single-family homes listed for sale with Realtors in North Texas. That’s the lowest inventory of houses on the local market in more than a decade.

“A lot of people that might be thinking about selling have been holding off putting their properties on the market,” Gaines said. “I think that in March, April and May we will start seeing the spring upswing and things will take off.”

Rich Thomas, executive director of the MetroTexas Association of Realtors, said the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market is tight.

“We’ve got relocation buyers who can’t find what they want and are renting,” said Thomas, who expects to see the number of for-sale signs to grow in the weeks ahead.

“You don’t really start seeing an increase in listings until after the Super Bowl is over,” he said.

Fewer than 22,000 single-family homes are currently offered for sale by real estate agents — down from almost 43,000 houses in the MLS in mid-2010.

Home prices in North Texas have recovered most of what was lost during the housing downturn.

In December, the median price of single-family homes sold by area real estate agents was $162,000 in the more than two dozen North Texas counties included in the monthly survey. At the bottom of the market in January 2010, the median price was just $130,000.

The recovery in the pre-owned home market is moving in step with a rebound in the D-FW homebuilding business.

During the fourth quarter of 2012, sales of new houses in North Texas rose by almost 20 percent.

And starts of new homes jumped by more than 48 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the final three months of 2011, analysts at Residential Strategies reported Monday.

Even fewer new homes are available than in the pre-owned market. At the end of 2012, less than 2,000 finished vacant houses were counted in the D-FW area.
Follow Steve Brown on Twitter at @SteveBrownDMN.

D-FW area home resales
October pre-owned home sales and prices in North Texas and change from a year earlier:
	Single-family homes		Condos/townhomes
Resales	5,658	10%	354	32%
Median price	$162,000	9%	$146,500	5%
Average days on market 73		-18%	90	-20%
Pending sales	4,318	17%	272	31%
Listed for sale	21,981	-19%	1,660	-25%
SOURCES: Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University; North Texas Real Estate Information Systems

^{http://www.dallasnews.com/business/area-home-sales/20130108-north-texas-home-sales-for-2012-reach-highest-point-since-2008.ece}

L.A.-O.C. home prices up 7.7%

Published on January 29th, 2013
Written by: Jeff Collins



Home prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County area rose 7.7 percent in November, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released Tuesday.

November was the fifth consecutive month of home-price gains in the region, boosting prices back to January 2004 levels, the survey shows. Despite those gains, home prices still are 36 percent below the September 2006 price peak.

The Case-Shiller report is the last, and most conservative, of four key price reports for November.

DataQuick, The California Association of Realtors and CoreLogic likewise showed hefty percentage gains in home prices, ranging from 8 percent to almost 16 percent in November.

Although Case-Shiller and CoreLogic reports lag other home price indexes, experts believe that both more accurately reflect changes in home values because they compare a home’s latest sale price to its price the last time it sold.

Nationwide, prices were up in 19 of 20 metro areas included in the Case-Shiller survey, with prices up 4.5 percent in a composite of 10 metro areas and up 5.5 percent in a 20-city composite.

Home prices got their biggest bounce in Phoenix and Las Vegas, two of the hardest-hit markets during the housing market crash. Phoenix home prices shot up 22.8 percent in November from the same month in 2011, while Las Vegas prices were up 10 percent.

Three other metros had double-digit price gains: San Francisco, up 12.7 percent; Detroit, up 11.9 percent; and Minneapolis, up 11.1 percent.

The only annual decline occurred in New York, where home prices dropped 1.2 percent from year-ago levels.
^{http://lansner.ocregister.com/2013/01/29/169069/169069/}

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