Multiple Offers More Common

 From Craig at the Harper-Mees Team in East Bay area of California

It happened again, just yesterday. A buyer wants to buy a foreclosure in hopes of getting a good deal on California real estate. After looking at several properties, they decide to put in an offer.

Hoping to offer the bank less than the asking price, they are shocked to learn there area already 8 offers in. What to do? What to do? Well, the bank is going to take the best offer, which is not necessarily the highest priced bid. A lower bid by a more qualified buyer might be accepted, but what to do?

The buyer ups the offer 5% over the asking price. Now it’s wait and see.

This is common tale these days as buyers that have been sitting on the fence decide the time to act is at hand. Unfortunately, the time to act may have been two months ago when there was a higher inventory of homes for sale and fewer offers.

Real estate market activity is picking up for many East Bay communities including: Danville, San Ramon, Pleasanton, Dublin and Walnut Creek. Many homes coming onto the market are seeing multiple offers in the first week. These are not short sales or foreclosures. Home prices are down, home sales climbing.

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California Housing Rises

Home sales increased 63.8% in March in California compared with the same period a year ago.

“The March sales figure of 522,980 homes indicates that the market continues to be very active,” said C.A.R. President James Liptak. “All of the regions in the state experienced increases in month-to-month raw sales, with the smallest gain in the Sacramento region at 9.7% and the largest gain in the Riverside/San Bernardino region at 32.2%.”

Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled 522,980 in March at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local Realtor® associations statewide. Statewide home resale activity increased 63.8% from the revised 319,290 sales pace recorded in March 2008. Sales in March 2009 decreased 16% compared with the previous month.

“The statewide median price showed the first monthly increase since August 2007, and has remained in the $250,000 range over the past three months,” said C.A.R.’s Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “A number of regions around the state also have registered monthly gains for one or more months since the beginning of this year.  … Low mortgage rates and house prices, coupled with the federal first-time home buyer tax credit, is having a definite impact on the California housing market,” Appleton-Young added.

Highlights of C.A.R.’s resale housing figures for March 2009:
-C.A.R.’s Unsold Inventory Index for existing, single-family detached homes in March 2009 was 5 months, compared with 12.2 months (revised) for the same period a year ago. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.
-The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 48.3 days in March 2009, compared with 56.8 days (revised) for the same period a year ago.
-Statewide, the 10 cities with the highest median home prices in California during March 2009 were: Santa Monica, $755,000; Danville, $738,500; Santa Barbara, $735,000; Mountain View, $700,000; Redondo Beach, $630,000; San Ramon, $621,000; San Clemente, $620,000; San Francisco, $617,000; Santa Cruz, $610,000; and Yorba Linda, $561,500.
-Statewide, the cities with the greatest median home price increases in March 2009 compared with the same period a year ago were: Lemon Grove, 18.6% and Rancho Santa Margarita, 3.1%.