Seal Beach real estate market

The Seal Beach real estate market, one of the many constituent markets of the Orange County housing market, faced generally positive but mixed signals in the most recent tracking period. According to a May 11, 2010 article from OCLNN, “Fewer Orange County homeowners received notices of default in April, the first step in the foreclosure process, compared to the previous month and in April 2009, a positive sign in the housing market’s rebound.” The piece, written by Mike Reicher, continued to note that “According to Bay Area-based ForeclosureRadar.com’s monthly ‘California Foreclosure Report,’ 1,671 homes were given notices of default, compared to 2,059 in March and 3,031 in April 2009. At the same time, the number of foreclosed homes sold or repossessed continues to rise, indicating that banks may be working through their backlog. There were 583 homes either sold to a third party or repossessed by the bank in April…”

However, the average price of a Seal Beach real estate declined slightly in April compared to last month. According to a May 24, 2010 article from the Orange County Business Journal, “The median price of an existing Orange County home declined by $2,000 in April from March, with demand still strong for lower-priced distressed properties both here and across the state, the California Association of Realtors said on Monday.” The piece by Mark Mueller continued to say that “The median price for an existing stand-alone OC home sold in April was $491,120, a less than 1% decline from March, but a nearly 14% increase from a year ago. The number of sales here rose 15% from a year earlier but edged down 1.4% from March, the Realtor association said.”

However, these same statistics indicated that the average sales price in the Seal Beach housing market actually increased year-over-year. According to a May 24, 2010 article in the Orange County Register, “The latest version is out, and the group – HQ’d at Cal Poly Pomona – found Orange County values (from an average movement in values from reviews of 39 sample homes) up 1.4% on a year-over-year basis…That seems a confirmation of other rising price markers that home prices have – at least, temporarily – bottomed out.”