Despite the ever-growing amount of information online, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for families to decode the housing market. Without context, real estate charts and percentages mean nothing, and right now there’s a mismatch between what homeowners are reading and what they are witnessing on the ground.
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers for June. I’ll share what they’re telling me and why, and, more importantly, what they might mean for you.
Ongoing housing shortage
For well over a decade, we’ve had a severe shortage of homes here in Ventura. While the volume of homes for sale (“inventory”) and the number of completed sales have both varied from year to year—sometimes dramatically—the ratio of sold to available homes has remained tight. It’s hard to see that when home prices fluctuate 5% or 10% or homes go from taking 10 days to sell to 25 days, but it’s a fact.
At our current level of sale volume, we’d need to see a very significant jump in listings before our market enters “balanced” territory. Ventura has been a “seller’s market” since 2014, and we’d need to experience a big change in supply and demand—a big, obvious shift—for that to change.
Rising inventory
Housing remains scarce in Ventura, just not as scarce as a year ago. But we need to zoom out to the county level to see this, as our city numbers are small and vulnerable to outliers.
In June of this year (the last month with complete data), 664 new listings hit the market county-wide and 653 entered contract to be sold. At the end of the month, a net of 967 homes were available for sale. We therefore had about “1.48 months’ inventory,” which means at our current pace of selling it will take less than a month and a half to clear every home out. In a balanced market, we’d have 6 months’ worth of inventory, so that is tight. It’s just not as tight as last year.
Last June (2023), 574 homes hit the market, 595 were sold, and the month ended with just 618 active listings. The contrast is stark. Last June we had barely more than one month of inventory, and homes were getting sold faster than they were getting listed. Our current market is slower by comparison, but not to a staggering degree, and certainly not enough to cause sellers to lose control of the market.
This perspective is important to keep in mind when you read reports of “softer” conditions. Softer, true, but still very, very favorable for sellers. And our current home prices bear this out.
Increasing sale prices
By just about any measure, home prices in Ventura are high—and rising. In fact, the City of Ventura’s median sale price in June clocked in at about $940,000, a full 10.6% increase over June 2023 (and at that time, inventory was even tighter).
The overall median sale price is only helpful for illustrating trends. The number by itself, however, doesn’t help homeowners gauge anything as it lumps single-family homes and condos together. Here is a breakdown:
- Single Family Homes: Median Sale Price $986,520, up a whopping 14% over June 2023. This is in part due to demand and supply, but also due to a higher percentage of larger homes being sold compared to 2023. Home sellers should expect to do better than last year, but shouldn’t get too excited without a full market analysis on their specific property.
- Condos: Median sale price $640,000, down 3% from June 2023. The fact that condo prices ticked down is a bit misleading; historically speaking, they are as high as ever. The median has averaged about $550,000 in the last 10 months, and June 2023’s median of $680,000 was the all-time high. Condo prices corrected from this peak due to persistently high rates; even though lower-cost homes are in high demand, buyers of these properties are extremely sensitive to rate increases. What we’re seeing right now is actually a resurgence in condo prices.
A great time to sell
I routinely check sites like Redfin, Zillow, and the rest, just to see the kind of information my potential sellers and buyers might read. I had to do a double take when I read that Realtor.com thinks Ventura is a Buyer’s Market! (It’s not). Meanwhile, Rocket’s “market meter” pointed to “Seller,” Redfin showed a “grade” of “Somewhat Competitive,” and Zillow offered no opinion. These “barometers” can’t provide an accurate gauge of the market because they use short-sighted algorithms that don’t factor in the last ten years or consider external variables like cash buyers. In reality, our market is strong for sellers.
Sellers can expect a high price and a relatively fast sale in the months ahead (Election and Holiday months excluded). It remains tough on the buying side, but not as tough as during the Pandemic Boom.
If you have any questions about the market or your move, give me a call at (805)-707-4121. Here’s to a great summer—at least, what’s left of it!
