2013 has been the best year yet for home sales in Big Bear since the market went cold in 2006 and the Great Recession soon after took hold. In fact, you'd have to look back to 2005 to find a year in which more Big Bear homes were sold. Take a look.
Over the past 11 years, we've celebrated a record 1905 home sales in 2004 driving prices to all-time highs and endured the bleak years such as 2008 when we had only 669 sales, about 65% fewer sales than we saw at the market's peak. Fortunately, a recovery is well under way as evidenced by this year, 2013, having posted 1215 closings. This year's sales exceded the previous 10 year average of 1169 home sales per year and are over 80% higher than the number of sales since the market's bottom in 2008 and a 13% increase over the previous year, 2012.
Over the next few days I will be posting histories of inventory, sales prices, and other relevant historical sales data. You will see in these posts how every single market number improved from 2012 to 2013. But the backbone of Big Bear real estate is always driven by the number of homes that sell. When the number of sales go up, this demand typically drives values higher. As you will soon see, this has been the case in 2013 as we've seen price jumps not experienced since the market's previous peak.
Stay tuned!