Ripple Effect?

t’s not unusual to hear people ask about the market in California because the perception is that how California fares, so does the Northwest. To some degree that’s true, we historically have a fair number of transplants from California to our area, specifically here to Anacortes, so we do feel some ripple effect from California. I have no real data on the numbers; just know it to be true from experience and watching our ebb and flow over the years. So it is good news for many reasons, including our selfish ones of wanting life to creep back towards normalcy up here in Anacortes that I read the sales pace of previously owned homes jumped a whopping 83% this February over last February! That’s huge! Now, the other part of the news is that the median price dropped 40.8%, but guess what – they had unrealistic gains to begin with. We’ve not had anything near the appreciation (or false appreciation) that California had, so we should not see that type of drop in value. Three more important statistics from California that help paint a picture of housing recovery. The median price this February versus last dropped from $418,260 to $247,590; folks are getting realistic about selling prices. The unsold inventory of resale homes hit 6.5 months in February, down from 15.3 months a year ago. Six months is considered a healthy market! And the average time it took a home to sell dropped from 69 days to 51 days. All of these are great indicators for California, which if they hold true for more that just February, they will also be great indicators for Oregon, Washington, and on down the line.