2020 will be a year that will certainly go down in Big Bear real estate history! The covid pandemic has left many people changing vacation plans that involved significant travel to farther away places for a more easily accessible getaway closer to home. With Big Bear's spectacular alpine setting less than a 3 hour drive for over 20 million people, our valley has experienced an unprecedented increase in visitorship as well as real estate sales.
To quantify Big Bear's real estate boom, let's start with the last three months.
In a same month comparison to last year, the average sale price of a Big Bear home was up 39% in September. August sales also show a 39% increase, and July's numbers were up 35%. Astounding!
Sales this September were up almost 250% over last September.
September's average sale price of a Big Bear home was $531,945, the highest Big Bear has ever seen.
And perhaps the most telling stat of all is that the average home in Big Bear sold for OVER full price in September.
These numbers support what every Big Bear real estate agent has anecdotally experienced - multiple offers on most homes getting bid up to over list price with cash offers often winning out. As of late, buyers obtaining loans have been willing to remove appraisal contingencies and are willing to increase their down payments to secure a property as prices are accelerating so fast that appraised values are lagging.
Working backwards, things weren't always this way in 2020. Take a look at the figures below.
Looking at the first figure, you can see that during the shutdown in April and May, sales were half what they were the previous year. But the real estate market in Big Bear took off shortly thereafter with September posting over double the number of sales from the previous year.
The second figure shows how prices stalled during the lockdown months only to see an unprecedented boom in prices over the last 3 months.
Yes, buyer demand has soared this year. But perhaps the more influential market condition that has driven prices higher is that the inventory of Big Bear homes for sale has never been lower. Currently, there are only 144 Big Bear homes for sale. Last year at this time, there were about 530 homes for sale. That's a 73% drop in home inventory!
With buyer demand still extraordinarily high, an extremely low level of home inventory, and mortgage rates hovering around all-time lows, the Big Bear market looks to be in a particularly strong position moving forward with additional price gains likely through the foreseeable future.