As of May 2022, the median home price in Anaheim Hills was $1.23M compared to last year, which is up almost 17% from just a year ago. That’s a significant increase. And a lot of Orange County homes, a lot of California homes have gone up 15% to 20%.In one state, the prices are up 40%. Like in Miami, the rates are up 40%. So it’s very significant. A lot of things happened in the last six months and a lot of things are going to happen differently in the next six months. 

Let’s look at the number of home sales. What happened in May 2022? Well, they were 14% from last year. They were 51 homes sold, which is up about 14% from May 2021 through 2022. 

In Anaheim Hills, the number of listings has jumped to 80% from last year, which is a big jump. So what happens when there’s a lot of homecoming for sale compared to the previous month? 

When more homes come on the market, there’s more competition. So it takes longer to sell a house. And when it takes longer to sell a house, prices stay or you don’t get the 10, 20 multiple offers that you used to get. And to show that last year the days on the market in May or throughout 2022 until May were about six or seven days. Now the days on the market have jumped from about seven days to eight to ten days, which is taking longer. I wrote some offers in Anaheim Hills, and the offer we got was on a house. There was only one offer. Moving forward, the sellers have to price it, right? They have to spruce up the house or make it a sale already because the buyers are getting very picky and very cautious and I don’t blame them. And why are the buyers cautious and taking their time? For several reasons. As you know, the interest rates have gone up. It’s almost 6% as of today, which is on June 30, almost. Inflation is up 8%. Home prices, as I just mentioned, went up 15% in Anaheim Hills. So buyers are saying now they don want to pay the higher prices. The interest rate has thrown off some people from qualifications and they cannot even afford to buy a house. So the buyers are being very cautious. So the sellers now have to be very competitive in selling their homes and marketing their houses and pricing their houses. And also their expectations have to be reasonable. Now, these are gone. 

Starting May, it’s a whole new market. One of the things that have happened from May through May 2022 in Anaheim Hills and also Orange County is that the listing price and the sales price ratio have remained the same. What that means is if a house was listed for a million dollars in the last five or six months, homes were selling at a million dollars or more. In fact, in Anaheim Hills, they were selling at 103% of the listing price, which means homes were getting 3% on average, more than the listing price until May 2022 that was closed. So any Escrows that went into April-May and going to close in June, July, and August, we will not see that according to what’s happening in June. What we are seeing and those numbers will be reflected in a couple of months when I give another report. Now, here’s another significant data, not only in AnaheimHills but in other areas, which is that 17% of the homes for sale have reduced their listing price. Prices are up, inventory is up. So what we have seen in the market is a very active May market through May 2022. Let’s see what happens in the coming June, July, and August sales. And of course, I’m curious to find out what’s going to happen in February and fall.