The Surf City Guru’s Real Estate Market Update!

For well over a year now, the Orange County real estate market has been reacting to negative reports in the media regarding rising interest rates, home loan fraud, predatory lending practices, bank failures, sub-prime loans, increasing number of foreclosures and short-sales, dropping housing prices etc... The list goes on and on. As a result, many people have been waiting for the proverbial bubble to burst or for the Orange County market to crash, like it has in other parts of the country. To the contrary, the higher end of the Orange County economy and real estate market has been rather stable and prices in more affluent neighborhoods have continued to rise regardless of what the media might report! The lower priced portion of the Orange County real estate market is almost at a stand still, because most inexperienced young professionals are renting instead of buying. This situation has resulted in far too many lower and middle priced properties on the market. Even with an average over nine months of housing inventory, prices have not been dropping much and most sellers have been holding firm to their price. The Surf City Guru has noticed that most home sellers that want larger nicer homes are playing the waiting game too, since most of them are not in a position where they must sell now.