Home Sales Breakdown in Palmdale and Lancaster, CA

Below is a chart, courtesy of my local title representative, that shows the breakdown of the types of sales in Palmdale and Lancaster, CA in April 2011. While these numbers currently are not varying a lot from month to month there are a few things to be noted.

First, new construction is not mentioned, so we’re left to assume that this chart represents just resale homes.  Also, their numbers currently being  so few, we don’t know if  HUD homes are included in REOs or not.

Next, there is a group of homes that I call investor  homes.  Corporations buy them, sometimes at a trustee sale, fix them up, and ” flip ” them to a buyer for a profit. The chart doesn’t indicate whether they are included in the REO or traditional sale section;  it could be interpreted either way.  Our local Multiple Listing Service has no simple way of labeling these either.

Finally, we see short sales at 14%.  My personal statistical checks have them at 17% to 19% month after month. It appears that I’m giving  more credit for short sales than the chart.  But the other side of the picture is that currently about 35% of the active listings are short sales.  A similar percentage each month get accepted offers from the short sale sellers. But it’s a disgrace that at the end of the month only 17% of the closed sales are short sales.

Despite the noted shortcomings, this chart is reasonable way to size the current real estate market in the Antelope Valley.  If there is a way to breakdown these numbers any further, I will do so in a future post.