Santa Ynez Valley June Real Estat Statistics

Surprisingly, despite all that is going on in the news, we have seen an uptick and real estate activity.  The market here is still buzzing along, and seems to be moving well.  We have less inventory than May, and are seeing quicker sales. 

While the real estate sales environment is moving along quite well, the lending environment is a little different.  As the Covid Pandemic got underway, lenders put the squeeze on Jumbo loans as the secondary markets for these loans dried up, and then phasing them out all together.  In the most recent news, however, some lenders have been working toward reviving their jumbo loan programs. "JMAC Lending restarted its jumbo program on Monday, a week before the target date the company set in March when it suspended funding the bigger mortgages as the COVID-19 pandemic began hitting the U.S. economy. "There is a high demand for jumbo loans right now as buyers return to the housing market, especially in high-value areas,” JMAC Lending’s President Christina Pham said in a statement that referred to the suspension of the jumbo program as a “pandemic pause.”"1 However, many banks are still not offering the jumbo product quite yet, and with the most recent restrictions put in place, it is still uncertain if they will be back anytime soon.  While the fate of the jumbo loan has been restricted, the conventional loans seem to be alive and well.  "Mortgage rates dropped to a new all-time low in the U.S. this week as a resurgence of COVID-19 infections caused investors to pile into the bond markets.The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.07%, the lowest in a data series that goes back to 1971, and down from 3.13% last week, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. The average 15-year rate fell to a seven-year low of 2.56%, according to the mortgage financier."2

With this good funding news, many people have been donning their masks and scheduling their property tours in search of new homes.  Our area alone has been inundated with showing requests and offers.  While the home searches seem to be ongoing the listing of homes has slowed.  Our current Market has 74 residential listings with a 39% decrease in new listings for the month of June compared to the previous year. 

*The Number of Listings chart displays listings counts by status.

Active listings: How many listings were for sale during each month. The number of active listings is a "snapshot" of active listings on the 15th of the month. Rather than showing the number of all listings that were active at any time during the month, this chart displays a representation of the number of listings that were active on one day. A trend upward or downward from month to month can be established by using the same day of every month.

Active listings are those which were active on a single day of the month, providing a "snapshot" of a day. A trend upward or downward

from month to month can be established by using the same day of every month. The 15th of the month is used.

Pended listings are all the properties which had a sale agreement made (or, were "pended") during an entire month.
Note: if a listing was under contract,but the contract later fell through, the listing is no

longer counted as pended during that month, and is left out of these statistics.

1.June 23, 2020, 1:38 pm By Kathleen Howley https://www.housingwire.com/articles/jmac-restarts-jumbo-lending-after-pandemic-pause/

2.July 2, 2020, 10:00 am By Kathleen Howley https://www.housingwire.com/articles/mortgage-rates-fall-to-new-all-time-low-this-week/