OC Housing Report

A Buyer’s Spring

The Spring Market may be the busiest time of the year for housing, but this spring is the most advantageous buying season for house hunters in years.

More homes come on the market during the spring than at any other time of the year, inventory rises, demand peaks, and market time climbs.

Spring has arrived. The days are growing longer, birds are happily chirping, temperatures are rising, and trees that lost all their leaves are blanketed with buds of new life. The official first day of spring was Friday, March 20th. It was also the beginning of housing’s Spring Market, the busiest season for real estate.

The Spring Market runs from mid March through May. It is still the Winter Market in early March, which runs from mid-January to mid-March. That is when the inventory does not change much, buyer demand surges onto the scene and rockets higher, and the market speed accelerates rapidly. It sets up the Spring Market. Spring is characterized by a steadily rising inventory, buyer demand that slowly grows, peaks between April and May, and then slowly falls, and the Expected Market Time, the market speed, slowly rises.

Looking at the 10-year average from 2015 to 2024, an elevated number of homes are placed on the market from March through August. The peak month is May. As a result, the inventory methodically climbs. Due to the high mortgage rate environment, many homeowners have opted to “hunker down” in their homes, unwilling to move due to their current underlying, locked-in, low fixed-rate mortgage

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Excerpt taken from an article by Steven Thomas.

About the Author

Tim Morissette, REALTOR®

Tim Morissette, also known in the community as Mr. Foothill Ranch, offers over 47 years of real estate experience which has given him an established reputation and unmatched market knowledge. He is joined by his wife, Michele and sons Matt and Jeff, as they continue to offer personal service with an emphasis on achieving his clients’ real estate goals. This unique combination of traits has led to his proven track record of referral and repeat business. This can be witnessed by the trust of homeowners in Foothill Ranch where he has sold twice as many homes and represented three times more buyers than the next-leading real estate agent for the last 27 years.

As residents of Foothill Ranch since 1994, Tim and Michele are actively involved in the community by fundraising for Foothill Ranch Library, Make-a-Wish Foundation, Cancer Society, Homes for Habitat, Relay for Life, South County Outreach, and the local church and schools. Tim enjoys sponsoring community-wide garage sales, paper shredding and e-waste recycling event, an Easter egg hunt, & a Meet Santa Event.

Tim and Michele are dedicated to their family of four sons, daughter-in-laws, and grandchildren. As a family, they enjoy many outdoor activities which include camping, spearfishing, mountain climbing and exploring the miles of hiking and equestrian trails in Foothill Ranch and the Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. Tim and his sons are also avid snowboarders and enjoy mountain biking and lobster diving. Family is a top priority in the Morissette household. They look forward to helping more families achieve their dreams of homeownership.