Active Home Inventory Getting Tighter in Fresno

With the start of 2013, I was hoping more sellers would be coming forward to list their homes. After all, prices are moving upwards. Most people don't realize, we have seen prices in Fresno county increase by about 8% from a year ago. The problem we have right now is low active inventory. I ran my "market barometer" search today, and found that their are only 798 active listings of single family homes, condo's and PUD's in the Fresno/Clovis area. Now of those 798, there are 112 "short sales" and 107 "Bank Owned" listings. That leaves a mere 579 "traditional" home sellers in the local Fresno marketplace.
This has put the inventory at less than a 1 1/2 months supply of homes. I've witnessed a steady decline in active inventory over the last 3 years. With approx 600 homes being sold per month, and slightly less than that being new listings, we have a declining active inventory.
The good news is that there is less foreclosure filings, and more traditional sellers coming forward to sell their homes. Everyone likes a traditional seller, because they are much easier to work with. The traditional seller will answer your offer in a few days, as opposed to the longer period experienced when working with banks and short sale lenders.
If you are thinking about selling, now is the time to get a good price and sell quickly. Clean, well priced homes are getting multiple offers in a short period of time, usually a few days or weeks, but not months.

Low Listing Inventory for Fresno Making it Tough For Buyers!

As of today, August 13, 2012, there are only 885 "active" listings in the Fresno MLS, for homes, condos and PUD's in the Fresno/Clovis areas. Of the 885 listings, 161 are short sales. So the actual homes that can be sold today is a mere 724 available listing. As you know, short sales take months to get approval and sometimes don't go through at all, so I don't count them as truly available properties. Also, of the 885 active listings, there are 110 "bank owned" REO listings.
This is an incredibly low amount of listing inventory! No wonder that buyers are having a hard time finding a good home to buy. I'm seeing multiple offers on nearly all listings that are clean and priced correctly. We actually need more like 2500 to 3000 listings to be a more balanced market with the number of buyers in the population of the Fresno, and Clovis communities.
This is having a positive effect on prices, as it is showing in the prices and values edging upward over the last year. The problem is we need listings. Anyone who is considering selling, must know that they can sell quickly at this time, and if they can find a suitable replacement property, they can reap the benefits of record low interest rates, such as 3.5% for a 30 year loan. It's just incredible the low rates we can get! .  Many homeowners that I talk to, would like to sell, but their property values have taken such a hit, that they are waiting for the values to increase. They are increasing but it's at a slow pace, maybe just a few percent higher than last year. I believe we have seen the bottom of the price decline, and values are slowly on the rise again.

10 Prime RE Markets for First-Time Buyers: Fresno, Calif.

I was recently interviewed along with my client and a Fresno loan agent, by Inman News, and the article was published. Fresno ranked 5th in the country for the most first time buyers and FHA financing. Click on the link below to read the article:

10 Prime RE Markets for First-Time Buyers: Fresno, Calif.

Fresno Real Estate Forecast 2012 Video by Joan Eaton

Low Pricing Generates A Frenzy of Highest and Best Offers

  In today's market it should be known, that many sellers, especially the resellers, or "flippers" that buy foreclosed homes, fix them up and resale for a profit, and also listing agents for bank owned REO properties have an interesting marketing technique whereas they list the property for a price under market value purposely, collect several offers from the buyers who are attracted by the price, then the sellers send out a multiple offer notice to buyers and asking them to make their "highest and best" offer. It is a fair practice, but it creates an artificial buying hysteria that takes. I tracked one well known reseller over the past year, and they had sold 300 properties in 2011, and the average sale price was $4000. higher than the average asking price. Very few of them sold for less than asking price and most of them sold for more than asking price, but the average was about $4000. higher. 
  So the lesson to learn here is that asking prices for most REO and "flipped" properties is just a starting point, and that buyers need to carefully study the comparable sales in the neighborhood to help in making the decision to bid higher than the asking price.

Fresno Home Listing Inventory Low as Investors and First Timers Snatch Deals

  According to an MLS search I ran this morning, there are only 1587 active listings of single family homes and condos in the Fresno and Clovis area, and of these 476 are short sales, or roughly 30%.
This means there are really only about 1111 active listings that can be bought today. I don't count the short sales as truly available, because they require 3rd party approval before they can be sold, and it's typically a 4-8 month process.
  From my perspective, I see most of the action in the lower price ranges, especially the under $100,000. properties that are being snatched up by investors and first time buyers. Any properties that are really clean or need little work are getting multiple offers. The buyers I've been working with are asked to submit their highest and best offers and many times are exceeding the asking price in order to win the bid.
  The best advice I can give, is to have a strong pre-approval letter describing your financing and credit scores before you go house hunting. This is essential homework to do, in order to get a seller to consider your offer, especially in a multi offer situation. Most bank owned listing agents won't submit your offer to a seller without one.

Internet email Scam Buyer Ivo Akuma

  I receive emails regularly that I can easily identify as scams. We all receive them, the letter from the barrister from england who has money to deposit in your account etc, etc. They just need your account number and your info to deposit the millions to your account. Yeah right! Anyway, I recently got an email from someone named Ivo Akuma (from Japan), and his scam was a little bit more unusual as he was targeting real estate agents with a letter posing as a buyer, asking for listings to be sent to him between $500,000 and $1,200,000. and he would be paying all cash. So I thought this was possibly some type of scam, but I sent him a list of nice homes anyway. A couple days later he wrote back with his choice from the list of homes. He said draw up a contract and email it to him. He signed the contract using electronic signatures. Then I requested proof of funds and he sent me a bank statement that looked legit showing some $3 million in his account. OK, so far but then I requested a $5000 deposit, and he emailed saying he didn't want to use a title company for his money and that he preferred to us an attorney trust account. Then before we got much furthur, I decided to google the name "Ivo Akuma" and found a blog exposing this person's scam on other agents. Here is the link to the blog:

 http://zitrof.net/mr-ivo-akuma-real-estate-scam/


I think his next move would have been to access the attorney's trust account number to attempt draining the money out somehow. I hope this person gets caught!