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Health & Fitness

Home Sales in Laguna Niguel and Market Report

Home buyers are in a "holiday shopping" mode.

Home sales in Laguna Niguel remain strong throughout 2012.

Ever since the national pundits called the bottom of the market early this year buyers have come out of the proverbial woodwork. Currently, in Laguna Niguel there are only 99 active listings of ALL price ranges.

Three of those are bank-owned REO properties and 14 are short sales. Total distressed property inventory is 17 percent of the Laguna Niguel market. The chart below from Clarus Metrics shows that sales are strong.

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The only thing that will make the chart drop in the next two months is that there are not enough homes for Realtors® to show.

I put a new listing on the market Saturday in Laguna Niguel in the mid $700s. In a 4-hour open house, I had 12 Realtors with clients show the property and another dozen or so families without Realtors.

Find out what's happening in Laguna Niguel-Dana Pointwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Today, there are only four condos under $300,000 and 41 detached homes
under $1 million.

As of  Dec. 1, there are 198 homes in back up or pending status. Twice as many in escrow as active. As I have said before, this time of year can work out well for sellers.

Buyers in Laguna Niguel have been asking me for four years about the “shadow inventory”. What about that? It is my feeling that if the inventory were to quadruple in January there would be enough pent-up demand to absorb all of the new inventory.

I have heard now from more than one buyer that the “flippers” are driving up the market in an unethical or malicious way. This of course is not true. Buyers are in control and if the market will not bear a price then the flippers will have lower their list price. Also remember that the flippers will do the remodeling that most buyers really don't want to live through. It is true that most flippers will
make their properties  look like a model home by using the “economy”
quality products rather than high end.

Ron Buck, Realtor®

Ron Buck has been a real estate broker for 16 years with over 400 successfully completed transactions. He is a 10-year resident of Laguna Niguel and is an expert in south Orange County real estate. You can contact him at Ron@JonRonRealEstate.com or 949.456.0505.

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