Sunday, October 19, 2008

What are you seeing lately?

It's been a while since I went out looking at open houses. I had some free time this weekend since my wife got stuck working so I took a drive around looking at a few open houses. And I do mean a few. There were not many this weekend. But when I did stop it was like deja vu. It looked just like in did last October; DEAD! There was no one looking. That's very different from a couple of months ago.

It was nice to hear that some thing's haven't changed though. Here's a few of the gems I heard, "it's a great time to buy", "these deals won't last forever", "investors are snapping them up", "sales are way up, we bottomed out late last year" and the very best comment I heard all day was "The stock market is just killing the real estate market". It seems like some things nver change.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

FWIW - I'm not sure what your target area is but mine is Eastvale. In this area open houses are getting tons of traffic and same for new home builders. This is assuming that the particular house/developer is priced appropriately (of course) but I am still seeing tons of people on the weekends especially considering it is October. In this area any house priced $125-130/sq ft or less is getting lots of attention and a lot are still being bid up from what I can tell. Seems high to me in terms of $/sq ft but there is lots of interest at this price point in this area. OTOH if I go 8 miles south to Corona proper, I'm barely seeing any activity relatively speaking.

Razor said...

i have to second Laurence's comments. I live in eastvale and keep a close eye on the houses for sale in my neighbourhood. I watch them like a hawk on the net, during open houses and pretty much every day when i drive home. All three REOs on my block had open houses this weekend and there were lots of people taking a look and lots of cars parked out front the whole time. These houses are 3000-3500 sf and are priced $360k, $325k and $369k. So in $120-130/sf range. The one that is $325k has multiple offers and the sales price will be higher than that list.

I have no idea what traffic looks like down in corona proper but up here in eastvale things are looking pretty good as far as I can tell....

golfer_X said...

I look mainly in Norco Hills, South Corona or up in Woodcrest (mockingbird Canyon area). Those areas were dead. Stick a fork in em dead. Now it was not like that a couple of months ago. Back in August the open houses were hoppin'. Looks like the low priced ones are still getting all the attention.

Allison said...

I looked in Woodcrest last weekend and it was DEAD. We are mostly looking in established neighborhoods, no new builds. No activity there.

Kyle said...

I'm also looking in Eastvale. I've seen a lot of people attending open houses and apparently bidding up prices. It doesn't matter because nobody is getting financing. Can you tell me why a dozen offers were submitted to the bank on a property and not one got accepted? All dozen offers that were submitted, came in higher than what I valued the house at. Not only do I smell cows, but now I smell something fishy.

I think I might go look at some houses that need facelifts. The douschebags I keep seeing at these open houses won't bid up a property that needs a little TLC because they don't want to get their hands dirty.

Sara said...

How do you guys find out about open houses in Eastvale? Is there a site or a list online? Thanks.

Kyle said...

sara, talk to a realtor.