Hot November Housing
Housing has been dealing with an unrelenting heat wave of its own since last year. After coming out of the COVID lockdown protocols, the inventory dropped, demand soared, and housing reached record breaking temperatures from July through the end of 2020. It never cooled. In fact, the 37-day Expected Market Time reached in December (the time between hammering in the FOR-SALE sign to opening escrow) was the hottest level of the year for Orange County. In 2021, temperatures climbed to levels never seen before, housing grew hotter, and the market time dove to 21 days on April 1st, the hottest reading since tracking began in 2004. Today’s 23-day Expected Market Time is the lowest for mid-November by far, and not much different than April. The heat wave is intense and will continue through the end of 2021, setting up a remarkably hot start to 2022, much hotter than this year’s start.
The Expected Market Time is the speed of the market, the lower the number, the faster homes are being placed into escrow. Anything below 60-days is considered a Hot Seller’s Market where there are plenty of showings, multiple offers, sellers call the shots, and home values are on the rise. A new level emerged to adequately describe this year’s heat wave, more intense than the record temperatures reached last year. Anything below 40-days is considered an Insane Seller’s Market. That is a market with a flood of showings, an overwhelming number of multiple offers, sellers get just about everything their hearts desire in calling the shots, and home values soar. Yes, despite all the news about flattening median sales prices (not an accurate gauge of home values anyways) and buyers less willing to enter bidding wars, home values are still on the rise today, in the middle of November just days before the start to the Holiday Market.
