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September 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Greetings Fans, Fall is in front of us, summer behind. With a little luck, we should see a small uptick in our market for sellers over the next 10 weeks. The overall belief is that once the Fed’s stop raising or lower interest rates, buyers will come back in droves to the market. The belief is that buyers will believe interest rates will fall lower so they should get in the market at the higher rate, and refinance when the rates drop. The problem is no one believes rates will drop much below five percent in the foreseeable future. Foreseeable being the next 24 months and longer. Higher interest rates…
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July 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Dear Real Estate Fan, Summer has arrived in full force this weekend. It looks like this year, our July will be hot and dry. Many of us remember last year as one of the most humid summers on record. Dry heat, wet heat, this weekend will just be HOT! But not the real estate market. In fact, the more I look at the numbers, the more I think we may have slid into a normal state in our market. Last month we closed escrow on 112 homes. This is down from 168 in 2022. If I look at 2015 through 2018, our sales look very similar. Today our price points…
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April 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Happy Spring Fans, What a crazy winter this year. We saw interest rates skyrocket with some of the quickest rate increases in 40 years. From my point of view, we had one of the coldest and wettest winters I can remember. It was just last Sunday we saw temperatures hit the high 70°s for the first time this year. We were still experiencing overnight temperatures in the 30°s this last week! With the weather bad news comes the beautifully stunning wildflower bloom we are now experiencing. The waves of purple and yellow flowers bring our local desert to life. What a great time to experience our High Desert communities. Because…
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March 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Happy Green Month Fans, Spring is almost here! With our wet winter should come an explosion of color with a prolific wildflower season. As our weeds are getting taller and taller so grows our inventory. At this point though, our buyers have not yet returned to our market as we would hope. Maybe with a little luck and good economic news, they will be returning this season. At this writing, it appears there may be a chance for mortgage rates to drop into the 6% range the next few weeks which would be good news for us. Our market has been stalled since last June. In the last four months…
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February 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Greetings Real Estate Fans, Well, the first month of the year is finished and we are still in the same place as last month. We have seen some changes that are contrary to the state and national trends. Our inventory is up almost 200% while nationwide it is closer to 10%. For the last four months, the majority of sales have been in Twentynine Palms, not Yucca Valley. Buyers are purchasing less expensive homes. Over 80% of homes sold in this Update are below $400,000. The weather has been cold and in some cases, wet! This is not prime home buying weather. Many of the “experts” are predicting an explosion…
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January 2023 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update and 2022 Year End
Greetings Real Estate Fans, A new year, a new market. Needless to say, things have slowed way down in the last six months in our Hi Desert real estate market. Word around town is many Short Term Vacation Rentals (STR) are vacant with little future bookings. Since a large part of our market was dominated by these buyers, I would expect to see both a slowdown and a raising inventory. We are seeing both. The weather has been colder and wetter than the last few years. I expect this is also having an impact on our market. For me, two items in this report tell the tale. First, until January…
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December 2022 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Merry Christmas Real Estate Fans, For me it’s the Christmas season. For those of you that celebrate a different holiday this time of year…Happy Holidays! You can hardly open the internet without seeing a variety of housing news. It does not matter if you look at the national picture, state picture, or the local market, the news varies with talking heads taking a variety of positions. I subscribe to the group that believes much of this will pass in the next six months. If our government allows it Time will tell but I believe many buyers don’t know what to believe so they are standing on the sidelines. No one…
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November 2022 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Warm Greetings from a Cold Desert, Sorry, this may be a bit longer than you are accustomed to. Our temperatures have cooled in our real estate market. Let’s be clear, it’s not blizzard, stay inside conditions in the market. Depending on your view we are either in a Fall or Spring real estate market in our local communities. Sales have cooled from our hot, post Covid market. Inventory is way, way up. At this writing we have around 650 active listings in our communities. We still closed escrow on over 90 properties last month. Prior to 2019, this would have been considered a great month for sales. The Fed’s raised…
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October 2022 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Happy Fall Real Estate Fans! Our temperatures are cooling. Many of us are in the mood to get outside and enjoy a beautiful fall in our spectacular desert communities. Our market has changed a couple of time over the last writing as we try to navigate this confusing real estate market. My comments may be a bit longer than I usually write. I believed and told you that I thought we would see some rebound in our market by now. I was not prepared for interest rates to jump from mid-5% range to the high 6% range in just about a weeks’ time. This has cooled our market even more…
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June 2020 Hi Desert Real Estate Market Update
Warm, Summer Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, As we watch spring fade into the past, we can only hope our world settles down and we can find a peaceful, and hopeful future. With that being said: As far as local real estate is concerned, I am starting to believe we may see the strongest market our area has ever experienced. I believe the stars are aligned for our communities. Read this from Fox News: Nearly 40% of U.S. adults living in urban areas indicated they would consider moving “out of populated areas and toward rural areas,” compared to 29% of overall respondents. And 43% of urbanites – a significantly higher percentage…