Blake Buys Homes: Orange County Housing Market in Decline

The Orange County, California housing market is facing a large decline in single family home and condominium sales because of high prices, falling demand and tight lending practices from banks. Home owners looking to sell their houses are increasingly looking towards real estate investors as a more cost effective and faster alternative than working with realtors. Continue reading →

Oct 29, 2014 /prREACH/ -- The California housing market is notorious for being some of the most overpriced real estate in the country. Orange County, CA specifically is one of the most densely populated counties in California, which adds increased exposure to market demands. In September 2014, California single family home and condominium sales fell by approximately 5.6%. Furthermore, 13 out of the 26 largest counties in California experienced monthly price declines in September compared to only 6 in August. The large decrease in sales has been reportedly blamed on high prices, falling demand and tight lending from banks.

Current market conditions are placing increased stress on would be homeowners looking to purchase houses in Orange County. Stringent underwriting guidelines and double digit home price increases over the past few years have significantly impacted housing affordability in California. Many families are choosing instead to search for rental properties until housing prices return to normal levels. This presents an interesting opportunity for homeowners looking to sell their house in Orange County.

Traditional real estate sales channels such as selling the house through a realtor, choosing to go for sale by owner, and listing a house on the MLS are seeing longer than average turnaround times. There just aren’t enough buyers in the market willing to pay premium prices to meet the demand of sellers. This has caused many sellers to seek alternative methods to sell their houses such as working with local real estate investors in Orange County (http://www.blakebuyshomes.com/articles/sell-house-fast-orange-county).

Tom Blake, an experienced commercial real estate broker, and Realtor and founder of Blake Buys Homes says, "Residential home sales typically take 4-6 months, can cost homeowners 7% to 8% of the sales price, and that cost can creep up to 10% quickly after factoring in the costs to hold the property during that period. Most of the homeowners we work with call us because they want to avoid the extra costs and effort of listing their home with a realtor and they started searching for other options."

The primary benefits for homeowners selling to real estate investors such as Blake Buys Homes, are speed, low cost and ease of overall transaction. As the Orange County housing market continues to decline, home investors are becoming an increasingly popular way to for homeowners to sell their house.