It seems like the popular sentiment these days is that on the national scale the real estate market has finally turned around. In fact, just today the National Association of Realtors reported that home prices are up 6.3% from last year. It seems like this market turn is being met with a sense of relief rather than a sense of elation. This is understandable as we just survived what was the biggest decline in real estate since the Great Depression.
So how siginificant was the impact of this downturn on Big Bear? Take a look at the graph below.
The red line - the median sales price of Big Bear homes - shows a decline of approximately 55% from the highest quarter of the market to the lowest. The blue line - the average price of Big Bear homes - shows a similar drop of nearly 55%. Wow!
The good new is that since the second quarter of 2011, we have seen a slow but steady increase in both the average and median prices. This shows that our local Big Bear real estate market is showing the same signs of recovery that the national market is showing.
Furthermore, the underlying fundamentals of a positive market shift are also present in today's numbers. Our home inventory is remarkably low (only 417 homes as of today, down from over 1400 in 2009) while the number of sales are up 30% over last year. The basic synergy behind any market recovery is having fewer homes for sale while having more buyers looking for a home. If this trend continues, prices should rise as sellers will hold out for higher values while buyers compete to purchase homes.
We will never know for sure if this recovery will be lasting, but we are certain that the last year has provided us some reliable signs that a true turn-around may finally be here.