Menifee CA Real Estate Update by Stefan West

June is here and it is time to take a few minutes and update everyone on how things are looking in the Menifee real estate market. Well things are looking up, literally! Where the rubber meets the road, namely closed home sales, numbers are up across the board. Take a look below:

Menifee & Sun City Homes Sales 2009 vs 2008

Month	2009	2008	# DIFF	% INCREASE
JAN	104	57	47	82.46 %
FEB	125	42	83	197.62 %
MAR	151	101	50	49.50 %
APR	204	125	79	63.20 %
MAY	199	114	85	74.56 %

Additionally, in cumlative (through May 2009) we have sold a total of 783 homes in 2009 versus 439 homes through May in 2008. That is an increase of 344 homes closed or 78.36%! So we are definately seeing more movement and in June we are at 92 closings versus 144 in 2008. However, we have 109 deals pending at this time.

But the news isn't all daisies and sunshine. We could actually be selling more but there is a very limited amount of available properties out there. Many of the Menifee short sales listed which dominate the active Menifee real estate listings are actually in process with multiple offers. So they aren't really available even though they say they are. And any decent to sharp looking bank-owned home on the market usually gets multiple offers within the first couple of days on the market and above asking price.

Again, on the surface very good news but looking deeper we are having an issue with supply and a concern about thousands more Menifee foreclosures being held back for the future. Initially, there was a moratorium on foreclosures through February 4th. That was lifted but it takes months to get the process finished. Just as we are starting to see more foreclosures come on the market, another moratorium was put into effect this week.

Overall, it is hard to say what the impact will be in the longer term future for the Menifee real estate market. In the short term, this limited supply of homes is stablizing and increasing home pricing but makes the environment highly competitive. Menifee homes are increasing in price actually and pushing past last quarter appraisal values. In fact, appraisal values from last quarter are often the only thing stopping a house from selling higher.

So overall pretty good news. Being a buyer for Menifee real estate right now is not easy unless you are sporting all cash or money down. I know there are a lot of FHA people that have to put out multiple offers in order to finally get into a property. And that in itself is a huge paradigm shift from last year. 2009 is looking very strong but the concern is a lack of inventory which normally I wouldn't mind, if there wasn't the fear of another shoe to drop (thousands of late year foreclosures) later this year.

In conclusion, I think Menifee CA Real Estate has taken a great jump and values are getting stablized. Additionally, the buyers are hungry for more homes and prices are moving up in Murrieta, Temecula, Menifee, and Wildomar. As multiple offers pour in on homes people are looking at Menifee more and more as a better price point for the size home they can get. That is all good news. If our numbers do start to slow down over the Summer it will be do lack of available listings not lack of buyers!

Sincerely,

Stefan West
Broker, West Realty
Specializing in Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, and Wildomar Real Estate