Big Bear Real Estate: Spring 2012 Update – March Miracle

Hello from Big Bear! Thanks for checking in with me on the Big Bear real estate market. No one was skiing in shorts on St. Patrick’s Day this year. Over two feet of new snow has fallen in the last few days, extending the winter ski season into spring. All this new snow doesn’t make it easy for potential buyers to come up and look for homes to buy, but, so far this year, we are seeing an increase in activity across the board as compared to 2011.

There are currently 549 active residential homes listed for sale in Big Bear and 116 currently in escrow, leading to a brisk absorption rate of 21%, and only 4.7 months of inventory currently available.

Compared to residential sales in 2011, February saw a 3% increase in total sales and a 13% overall increase in average price. In the first two months of this year, as compared to last, the average price has increased a whopping 11.3% (which roughly equates to the total decline in all of last year.) Although, let it be said that the first two months of any given year in our unique Big Bear real estate market, do not strongly indicate or necessarily dictate what is to come. The fact of the matter is that some very expensive homes closed in January and February this year. This is rare and may end up boding well for the upper end of our market going forward, but it certainly skewed the overall numbers a bit. However, when looking only at the total number of closed sales, so far this year has indeed started out stronger than last.

A couple of interesting notes: So far this year 32% of all closed sales have been cash deals. 30% of closings were foreclosures, 52% resales and 15% were short sales. Whereas, when looking at the active listings: 81% are resales, 10% are short sales and only 6% are foreclosures. There will be many more great bank-owned deals coming to the market as we head through spring and into summer – So let me know if you would like me to keep you posted on those. Until next time: All the best and happy hunting.