Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

Here are the numbers for last week’s Lake Oroville real estate market. This is the third week in a row that the number of Oroville home sales has been in single digits, and the 7th week out of the past 8 for this. With inventories still low, and a lot of that inventory in disrepair it is becoming more and more difficult to find properties for Oroville area buyers.  All of my team members have pools of buyers that they simply cannot find decent properties to show them.

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 Another ho-hum week for Lake Oroville real estate market as sales activity continues to under perform. But once again we find that the inventory of Oroville homes for sale has dropped to another low. 

If the current activity in the office of our Oroville market is any indication we may soon be seeing a change in these sales numbers. Our Oroville agents have been very busy this week showing property and writing offers. It is good to see that maybe the spring-like weather is bringing buyers out.

If you are thinking of selling, now might be the time to get your home on the market.

Over the past eighteen months or so I am sure you have seen many an article written by various real estate professionals encouraging buyers to “get off the fence” to take advantage of the low prices and low interest rates currently available.  As a regular reader of this Lake Oroville and Paradise, CA real estate blog you have also seen my views of market conditions over the past year. Many buyers have taken the advice and made some magnificent deals on their purchase of homes in the Oroville and Paradise, Ca real estate markets.

The advice has been taken so seriously in fact that a new dilemma is now facing potential Oroville and Paradise buyers: A lack of adequate inventory!

Suffering from significant loses in the value of their homes, many Oroville and Paradise potential home sellers have decided to wait for the market to get “better” before putting their homes on the market. What the definition of “better” is remains to be seen, but a look at the trend in the Oroville inventory numbers (see chart) points to a need for some sellers to get off the fence themselves and take advantage of the lower interest rates, and the increase in buyer inquiries we are beginning to experience.

Granted, home prices are not what they were in 2006, but if you are waiting for a return to those prices, you are in for a very long wait. Those prices were a result of very loose and irresponsible lending standards. They were not driven by free market demand.

So what is a seller to do? Well, that depends on your circumstances. If you do not need to sell, then DON’T. If you are considering a sell but are thinking about waiting for a year or so for the market to improve, you may be outsmarting yourself. While it is possible (isn’t anything possible) that prices may move up in the next year, it is not very probable. I continue to think that we are at the bottom of this market but that we will be bouncing along the bottom for quite some time. Maybe two to three years before we see any consistent price appreciation trends in our local markets.

Historically low interest rates, and lower prices have significantly increased the home affordability for Californians. An increase in either of these factors will exclude potential buyers from the market further delaying any meaningful recovery.

Another thing to consider when contemplating a sale is how many other homes are on the market that compete for the attention of potential buyers. With inventories at an 8 month low, now would be the best time for your home to be seen by the most buyers.

I know that many of you are upside down with your mortgages at the present time and NEED to wait for a significant turn in home values. But for those of you who owe less than the value of your home or own your homes outright, this may be a good time to think about getting off the fence.

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A little while back I posted a blog article regarding the lack of attention that many REALTORS® are paying to their obligation and legal requirement to provide the proper disclosure documents to clients and cooperating agents in a transaction. Not much has improved since then. The biggest violators of the disclosure laws seem to be those agents that are working as agents for the banks.

Before I continue let’s make one thing clear: Not every REALTOR® who is working for a bank is ignoring the law. Most of them are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

There does, however, seems to be a growing number of  bank-hired agents in our area that have somehow come to believe that they are above the law, in fact REFUSING to comply with disclosure requirements. And to be totally blunt about it, I am tired of it. So tired in fact, that it is time to do something about it. Maybe it is time to start naming names on this blog site of those agents who seem to have acquired the arrogance of the banks to whom they have pledged their allegiance, and refuse to do their jobs. Or maybe the Department of Real Estate would be interested in seeing what some of these “agents” are doing; I mean, NOT doing.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

I e-mailed the local listing agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week to ask her to provide me her inspection disclosure. She is the listing agent for all of the HUD owned homes in Northern California. As an agent for the seller she is required to perform what the real estate law calls a “diligent visual inspection” of the property and provide a written disclosure of her findings to my buyer. As the agent of the buyer I to am required to do the same.

Her response to me was that she “normally” does an inspection when she is representing the buyer. But because I was representing the buyer she did not feel she was required to do the lawfully required visual inspection.

We currently have another transaction with an agent from S. California who has a bank owned property in Oroville listed. He too is refusing to provide the results of his visual inspection. Know why? He has never seen the home and has no idea what condition it is in. Being an agent from out of town DOES NOT exempt him from performing his duties. It seems that the longer this foreclosure market continues the more these type of agents cut corners and violate thier ethics. Can you imagine what it is going to be like by the end of the year if something isn’t done to fix it?

So here is how I am going to help YOU become part of the solution. Beginning this week I will be sharing with you the disclosures you can expect to see during your Lake Oroville, or Paradise, real estate transaction. With this knowledge in hand you can begin to demand the proper disclosures from your agent and have just that much more piece of mind about the purchase of your new home.

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One of the biggest dilemmas facing potential sellers, in what is a very difficult market from their perspective, is what to do about making repairs, or performing upgrades to a home before placing it on the market.

Over my nearly 16 years in Oroville real estate market, I have consistently counseled sellers to be very careful about putting money into repairs and upgrades of their homes as it very rarely means that they will see all that money come back to them in the sales price of the home.

A recently released report by Remodeling Magazine provides some valuable data on what your expected return might be on monies used to  upgrade or repair your home. The information I am linking you to is for the Sacramento, California area as this is the closest area to the Lake Oroville area that the magazine rated.

While looking at these numbers keep in mind that this is a survey which only concerns itself with dollars spent vs. dollars recouped. Another major factor you should consider when judging the return on your investment is that, while almost none of the items surveyed paid for themselves, many of these items may actually help your home sell faster, which is of value in itself.  Remember: TIME IS MONEY!

Be sure to click here to see the report in its entirety.

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 Wow, have I been a bad boy. I have neglected my duty to provide the Lake Oroville real estate market with the most up-to-date home sales stats. Not sure why I am behind, but here are the mumbers for the week endig January 4, 2010.

Maybe it was that mini-vacation I took that threw me off!!!

Stat of the week is the continuing decline is the number of Oroville homes currently listed for sale. The number hit a new low for the week. At the current sales pace this equates to approximately 6 month inventory of homes for Lake Oroville. 

Click Here for more historical info

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Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor Arizona trip, will keep me from providing you, my loyal Lake Oroville real estate market readers, with the weekly sales activity number for last week.

You heard right, I am actually taking a few days of southwest r& r. But fear not, I have not forgotten my duty to you.

I hope you all had a great and blessed Christmas day and that you are planning for a safe New Years celebration.

Sales numbers for the week were actually pretty good considering that it was a major holiday week.  I have highlighted what I believe to be the stats of the week. Average sold price has been climbing the past 4 weeks and last week was the highest it has been in the past 10 weeks. The other stat of note is, once again, the number of single family Oroville homes for sale. The is number represents the fewest number of homes on the market since I have been bringing you this particular statistic beginning June 8, 2009.

As a seller, or potential seller, this is THE number to watch going forward. Smaller inventory will eventually translate into higher prices.

Well, that is all for know. I’ve got another “busy” day scheduled tomorrow as I do more trailblazing through the Arizona  desert on my quad runner.

Click here for expanded chart

 Merry Christmas, everyone. We had a very slight sales rebound last week in the Lake Oroville real estate market, but again not much on which to comment. I think the biggest news in the current market environment  is that inventories are continuing to shrink. I have provided a chart at the bottom of this post which graphs the nature of the inventory trends.  Be sure to click on the graph for a larger view of it.  As a buyer you will want these inventories to show increases as this will keep prices more affordable. As a seller you should like the trend that has been developing since June. Shrinking inventories will result in higher prices over time. 

Click here or on chart for larger view

Click here for more stats

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The following chart is something I produced to give you a visual idea of what the price ranges of  homes  currently for sale in the Lake Oroville real estate market..

As you can see, the inventory levels, as compared to nealry all other price ranges, are quite low in the $100,000 and below range which is what is mostly selling due to the $8,000 federal tax credit.  The highest inventory we see is in the $200,000 – $300,000 price range. In my view this is the price range that will need to pick up the sales pace before we see any lasting improvement in the level of home valuations.  Unfortunately, for sellers I don’t see a big turn in home sales at these price ranges in the near future. I hope, however that I am wrong.

Weekly sales data will be available here later today!

I’m sure that after 8 months of reading my blog posts you I know that I am pretty much a numbers guys. I don’t take much stock in what I am told about the condition of the real estate market by media types because I know that they provide no perspective on that about which they are reporting. Drama and gloom and doom is good for ratings, so for the most part, that is what we get.

As your self appointed interpreter of real estate news and information for the Lake Oroville real estate market, I find it important to dive into the data provide to you with what I think is really going on in this market. Every once in a while, though, I get hold of a report that does a whole lot better job of explaining the situation than I can. (I know…that is just hard to believe).

The report I am providing a link to today comes from Jim Moll of Wells Fargo Advisors. As a longtime Oroville financial advisor, Jim is gracious enough to send reports to me and other Oroville REALTORS®from time to time to assist us in keeping our clients informed of market conditions. Fortunately for buyers and sellers in the Oroville, Chico and Paradise areas, this is the only real estate site on which you will see reports of this nature.

Either click here to see the report or click on the graphic. And remember, always read or listen to the story behind the headlines.