The housing market appears to have recovered from the depth of its decline. Toll Brothers (TOL) reported a whopping 46% jump in its latest earnings report and Home Depot’s (HD) earnings soared 18%. Today the National Association of Realtors reported that April existing home sales surged to their highest level in more than three years.
A widening supply of homes in Southern California caused the market to see a surge in home sales, rising to an eight-year high for that month as buyers were able to find more available homes for sale, a report from California-based DataQuick revealed.
A Realtor.com report out Tuesday revealed that California has been replaced by a new set of market leaders in regards to inventory decline.
The median sales price for a home in SoCal remained nearly unchanged from the month before, but increased 26% year-over-year, marking the seventh consecutive month with an annual gain of more than 20%.
The July median is still 23.8% lower than the peak of $505,000 median in the spring and summer o2007.
SoCal homebuyers seem to be confident in the current housing market, as they continue to put near-record amounts of their money into residential real estate. In July, these homebuyers put a shocking $5.39 billion of their own money into downpayments or cash purchases, up from $5.25 billion and June and up from $3.61 billion a year ago.
“The market continues its rebalancing act, with more and more people who’ve been ‘underwater’ now able to sell their homes at a profit, or at least break even. As the mismatch between supply and demand eases, it will be more difficult for home prices to rise as steeply as we’ve seen over the past year,” Walsh added.
Overall, indicators of market distress continue to decline. Foreclosure activity is still well below year-ago levels and remains well below peaks established in the wake of the housing bust, DataQuick intelligence shows.
