Million-dollar homes in Orange County became much harder to sell as 2015 came to a close, in comparison to cheaper residences, claims a new report. As it turns out, the holiday season slowed the speed of sales, in addition to the expensive price tags.
ReportsOnHousing.com conducted their first tally of 2016 for the listings in Orange County. Results shows that "the seasonal slowdown in selling speed was more pronounced for housing's upper crust." According to OC Register:
"The biweekly report tallies a 'market time' that represents the theoretical period it would take to sell the inventory of all listed homes at the current pace of new escrows opened in the past 30 days. By this math, it took 3.9 times longer to sell an Orange County home priced above $1 million than a cheaper residence as of Thursday [December 31] - vs. six months earlier when it took 3.3 times longer to sell at the market's high end."
As it turns out, the growing gap is attributed to a lot of factors, one of which being the decreasing supply of available homes in the market for buyers to purchase.
By December 31st, there were 2,905 homes listed worth less than $1 million, which is a decrease of 29 percent from the previous six months.
In addition, a similar decrease was also spotted in homes priced $1 million and more. As of December 31, there were 1,523 homes listed - a drop of 33 percent from six months earlier.
On the other hand, demand - measured by new escrows - decreased significantly for more expensive homes. New escrows for homes that were listed at prices less than $1 million had a total of 1,445 as of last Thursday; indicating a 41 percent drop from six months ago.
Homes listed for $1 million or more had a total of 194 new escrows, highlighting a 53 percent decrease, as compared to the statistics six months earlier.
In an overall perspective, the Orange County home market had a time of 81 days as of last Thursday, versus a 67-day market time in July.
