Perhaps the best news for the real estate market in years is how the number of Big Bear homes for sale has fallen drastically over the past year. As previously posted, we have seen a steady decline in home inventory since the market hit a high of over 1400 homes for sale back in 2009. This past year, those steady declines seemed to become more pronounced as we have plummeted to a current inventory of just 333 homes listed for sale in the Big Bear MLS as of this morning. As far as I can tell, no one has an official historical record of home inventory. But in asking around, it is many agents' impression that there have never been fewer homes for sale in Big Bear
But as one reader pointed out to me, even if there are very few homes for sale, if there were no buyers to purchase those homes, this low inventory wouldn't necessarily be helpful to a market recovery.
Estute observation! That is why in the real estate business, we sometimes refer to the home inventory in "months of supply" rather than just how many homes are listed at a given time. By dividing the number of homes for sale by the number of sales there were during the previous month, we get a number that takes into account not only how many homes are listed, but the rate of sales as well. This will show us theoretically how long the supply of homes would last if the number of sales were to stay the same and if no new listings were to come on the market.
In a typical market, we usually see around a 6 month supply of homes. In 2009, we had an 18 month supply of homes at one point in time. Today's supply is a remarkable 4.4 months. Again, anything under 6 months suggests a strong real estate market.
Take a look...
Last January there was a 10 month home supply whereas urrenty we are at 4.4 months. Quite a change in the market considering 6 months is a balanced market.
Just more good news suggesting that Big Bear real estate is heading in the right direction!