Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/28/2012 05:41:04 PM PDT
Tuesday’s housing data showing improvement in three key measures of the housing market occasioned some optimism in Southern California.
That optimism may not, however, extend to particularly depressed places like the city of San Bernardino.
A longtime real estate seller said his company is doing fine, but the overall market for residential real estate there is not.
But the picture for Southern California as a whole may be brighter.
“The bottom line is, I think this is yet another piece of evidence that the housing market has stabilized and is on its way to recovery,” said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
“It’s still going to take a couple years to work through the flow of distressed properties, foreclosures and otherwise, but they’ll be a smaller percentage of the total mix,” he continued.
The Case-Schiller report includes the combined Los Angeles and Orange county metro area.
The new numbers did show a price decline of -0.6 percent in Greater Los Angeles when June’s numbers are compared to the same month in 2011.
Kleinhenz pointed out, however, Case-Schiller’s data for the Los Angeles area show increases in the two months leading up to June.
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What this article fails to mention anywhere is the fact that there are about 60-70% fewer houses listed for sale than there were just a year ago. The theory is that the banks are sitting on vacant houses and they’re also not foreclosing on people who have stopped paying their mortgages. The lack of inventory combined with slightly elevated demand are the only things that are causing the median price to rise. The housing market is far from being stable.