Simi Valley housing sales for May 2013 increased by 25 units over April’s volume. Homes continue to sell near, at or just above the original asking price across all price sectors. Homes in the $400,000-$500,000 price range continued to dominate sales as they did in April. The median price for single-family detached homes in Simi Valley was 450,000, which is a 12.5% increase over January’s median price of $400,000.
Sales of distressed properties including short sales, foreclosures and homes in default declined another 8% in volume, with equity sales taking a 68% share of all sales for the month of May.
The positive news in the housing market may be tempered by several outside influences. The 30 year mortgage interest rate is now climbed up over 4%. This increase in lending rates effectively takes away approximately $30,000 in purchasing power from a typical home buyer. Additionally as of June 3rd FHA mortgage insurance is now permanent for the life of the loan. While FHA is a good program for those with low down payments or some credit challenges to get financing, the mortgage insurance premium charged by FHA has increased several times over the last five years, including most recently April’s increase to 1.55%. These increases to financing will slow rising sale prices.
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