I was a true Black Sabbath fan – I had Paranoid and Volume 4 on 8-track! This was the best quality video I could find with the most coherent performance – it was filmed in 1998 after the band got back together (Ozzy was out for 18 years doing 13 solo albums)!
This is the funniest Ozzy thing I’ve seen – wait until the end:
The meandering through Flatsville is predicted to continue for the next 12 months – at least. The areas that have single-digit sales will have fewer comps to rely on and be particularly hard to accurately predict the values. Expect some wild fluctuations on occasion!
It probably means we’re in for a long slow grind downward on price – saved only by the first-quarter flurries that should happen every year. Unless mortgage rates dip into the 5s.
The first take by our new chief economist, Mike Simonsen.
He doesn’t pull any punches either:
The pricing downturn is expanding throughout the country. While only a few communities felt it in January, now many (36%) of the top metro markets are feeling it:
Jan: 31 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 10% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the January 2024 to January 2025 window.
Feb: 42 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 14% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the February 2024 to February 2025 window.
Mar: 60 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 20% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the March 2024 to March 2025 window.
Apr: 80 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 27% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the April 2024 to April 2025 window.
May: 96 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 32% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the May 2024 to May 2025 window.
Jun: 110 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 36% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading in the June 2024 to June 2025 window.
Year-over-year home value declines, using the Zillow Home Value Index, are evident in major metros such as Austin (-5.8%); Tampa (-5.7%); Miami (-3.8%); Dallas (-3.7%); Orlando (-3.7%); Phoenix (-3.5%); San Francisco (-3.4%); San Antonio (-3.3%); Jacksonville, Florida (-3.2%); Atlanta (-2.9%); Denver (-2.7%); San Diego (-2.4%); Raleigh (-2.1%); Sacramento (-1.8%); Houston (-1.8%); Riverside (-1.5%); New Orleans (-1.2%); Charlotte (-1.0%); Memphis (-1.0%); San Jose (-0.9%); Portland, Ore. (-0.4%); Seattle (-0.1%); Los Angeles (-0.4%); and Birmingham (-0.1%).
Goldman Sachs made this prediction: “Against the backdrop of an easing housing market, we expect national home prices to rise just 0.2% December-over-December this year and 0.8% next year.”
Thankfully, the buoyant first quarter of the year had a +3% in pricing for the La Jolla-to-Carlsbad market that will help offset the negativity we’ll have for the rest of the year.
Is there anything promising about the market? Yes!
But consider this stat – and this is Zillow reporting it, not me:
There were 40.9% of the sales that closed over their list price? WOW! Wouldn’t you think that in a regular market, about 10% or maybe 20% of the homes would sell above list?
This isn’t a normal market….or maybe it is?
We’ve received two offers on our Linda Lane listing, and it’s over list already.
How do you explain it?
Most of the enthusiasm is in the entry-level of each market where it’s more competitive. Once you get higher in price, there’s more inventory and buyers get more picky.
For example, the homes priced at $2,500,000+ in Olde Carlsbad better have something special about them because you can get a nice tract house in La Costa or something decent in Encinitas for that money.
There doesn’t appear to be enough buyers to pick up every home for sale, so that’s where the market will be made for the rest of the year.
Will sellers sharpen their pencil on price, or just let it ride? The vast majority won’t do much, if anything about their price. About 40% of them have been on the market for more than 60 days, so they are way off the buyers’ radar.
Another contributing factor is the demise of the buyer-agent.
I’ve had five agents tell me that they are writing an offer on Linda Lane. NONE of them showed their buyers the home initially – they all came to the open houses, which is fine because I like having some influence on them.
The traditional showing of a home by the buyers’ agent who properly advises their clients on the not-so-obvious features is where the deal is made. Without it, buyers are left to figure it out on their own, and it’s just too easy for them to stay on the fence unless they see something really special.
As a result, my job at open houses has evolved into being the de facto buyer-agent. I’m the one who sells them on the value, and then they go find their agent to write it up!
I don’t mind – in fact, I love it.
Do you see other agents really selling their product at open houses? Me neither. It’s why the market sluggishness will be around for a while, and maybe forever.
Sellers aren’t giving up yet, and with the additional inventory available, it could happen that the number of pendings this year might exceed last year’s count for a week or two (green line crosses over the blue line above). What a delightful end-of-summer treat that would be!
Sales may start tapering off though.
There are only 89 closed sales this month, so last year’s 198 is probably out of reach but if we can get to 160-180 sales it would be decent:
The summer season has been fairly quiet for us and most of the other participants. I mentioned last week that it would be nice if we have a bit of a surge as buyers try to get in before school starts.
Sure enough, all three of our active listings received threats of offers over the weekend, and hopefully something will come of it. I think it means we can add mid-July to our list of times you want to have your house on the market – with the other ideal times being in January and February.
Here’s a look how we did at our new listing in Carlsbad. I was figuring that the remaining projects would roughly price out like this: $50,000 for windows and 3 sliders, $50,000 for new kitchen, $50,000 for 2.5 new bathrooms, and $50,000 for new HVAC and landscaping:
Over the last 30 days, we’ve had 89,464 unique IP addresses visit bubbleinfo.com!
While that sounds quite flattering, the audience can’t be that big, can it?
Last week you may have noticed the security feature we had in place for three days, where you had to verify that you were a human to access the blog. It was a test to see how many real people we have here!
Thankfully, the result was better than I expected. From the third day:
It means there have been 2,000 to 5,000 bots per day reviewing my 12,000+ blog posts from the last twenty years and probably taking a snippet or two for their free use. I don’t mind as long as they are used in a positive way. Let me know if you ever read anything out there that sounds JtR-ish.
It also means that we have a few hundred real people visiting here every day!!
Thank you for being here. I appreciate your attendance and participation!
Oceanside ranked #2 on their list – if you like it around here, maybe you just downsize to O-side?
Not sure of their accuracy though because look who was #6:
https://www.newsweek.com/map-10-best-places-retire-california-2095451
Our national real estate cheerleader at NAR, Lawrence Yun, has published his mid-year forecast. His original forecast for the 2025 Median Home Price was 2% originally, so his downgrade has cut it in half.
I don’t mind him having a revision, but doesn’t his 2026 sound wildly optimistic? He provided no substantiation or research data to back up his guesses.
The 2025 Price Forecasts are here:
https://www.bubbleinfo.com/2024/12/04/2025-price-forecasts/
Here’s what I said:
Here’s how it’s turning out:
In December, I guessed +5% and there was only +3% in NSDCC appreciation in the first quarter of 2025. My ‘flatsville’ call for the rest of the year is looking pretty good though, and might be optimistic!
Check out our new listing in Olde Carlsbad!
2025 Linda Lane, Carlsbad
4 br/2.5 ba, 1,870sf
YB: 1975
Lot size = 7,600sf
LP = $1,500,000
Check out this nicely renovated 4br home built on a large 7,600sf lot on a culdesac where three homes have sold over $2,000,000 in the last 18 months – including the house right next door that closed for $2,040,000 in March and was then gutted down to the studs! The house across the street sold for $1,710,000 in 2024 and they tore it down to build a multi-million mansion! What’s the #1 rule in real estate? Buy the least-expensive home on the street! Our listing has new flooring and paint, lighting, fencing, landscaping – and ocean view too, with peek of Catalina Island!
Open 12-2pm on Saturday & Sunday!
https://www.compass.com/listing/2025-linda-lane-carlsbad-ca-92008/1887446643870527721/
