Sales of New U.S. Homes Unexpectedly Rise to Seven-Year High

(Bloomberg) — Purchases of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly rose in February to a seven-year high as stronger job gains helped bolster industry activity amid severe weather.

Sales climbed 7.8 percent to a 539,000 annualized pace, the most since February 2008, Commerce Department data showed Tuesday in Washington. The reading exceeded even the most optimistic forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

Americans withstood…. read more on www.bloomberg.com.

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Economist: 3 major things you need to know about the 2014 housing market

Housing Wire recently asked veteran housing economist David Berson to list 3 major things we need to know about the 2014 housing market.

Berson’s list:

  1. 2014 should prove to be the strongest year for housing activity since before the Great Recession (or as I fondly call it, “The Great Correction”)
  2. Demographics should start to favor housing activity
  3. Mortgage availability shouldn’t worsen and may improve

We’ve seen these trends gaining traction in #SiliconBeach. It’s good to know the broader trends are coming up on our heels to support the growth. Go Silicon Beach real estate!

Now who’s been hanging back waiting? Let’s get on it before the train leaves the station. 😉

See the full article with Berson’s predictions on www.housingwire.com.

Silicon Beach Real Estate – 90 Day Rolling Averages For Home Sales

Real Estate Trending Up

There is a lot of press lately about a big pull back in real estate across the country. Contrary to other areas, I’d say that things are definitely looking “up” in #SiliconBeach, as demonstrated by the data charts below.

Numbers for Marina del Rey, Playa Vista and Playa del Rey are slightly more mixed, but those are small markets with anomalies in housing stock.

These charts reflect data for single family homes. Click each chart for Continue reading “Silicon Beach Real Estate – 90 Day Rolling Averages For Home Sales”

Crowdsourcing A New Normal In Real Estate

evolutionFirst there was Web 1.0…

By luck and happenstance, I fell into real estate just as Web 1.0 was hitting its stride. Suddenly you weren’t one of the cool kids if you didn’t have a static brochure site up with contact information and a cool .com or .net domain name. A picture of an agent with his or her dog was not uncommon. It was a heady time, especially for a lawyer who didn’t have a clue about any marketing, much less internet marketing (despite the staggering tuition I paid my law school 😉 ).

Then came Web 2.0…

Flash forward to the mid-2000’s and people wanted a little more action from their website experience. They got comfortable filling out forms with personal information and handing over their credit cards to buy things from faceless strangers. They got empowered! And they got Continue reading “Crowdsourcing A New Normal In Real Estate”