I don’t really know why I thought we would miraculously bypass going through the pains of a short sale. Maybe it’s because I had done so much research and figured I just knew everything there was to know. Maybe it’s because I didn’t think it would take all that long, even though I have heard the horror stories.

HA HA. Joke’s on me.

The timeline has gone a little something like this:

March 9, 2011: submitted short sale package to both lienholders.

March 13, 2011: realtors office called both lienholders to ensure they received packages ok. Second lienholder had, first lienholder stated items were missing in package. Resubmitted items they had mis-scanned.

March 18th, 2011: first lienholder stated package was in imaging and would be reviewed within 10 days.

March 25th, 2011: second lienholder approves short sale subject to first lienholder terms and conditions.

Fast forward. I don’t even know the dates anymore because originally I wasn’t going to blog about this. Instead of assigning the package within 10 days, the first lienholder gives us a massive runaround. We are told to wait 30-45 days for it to be assigned. We are told it would have been 10 days if everything had been there on the first attempt but since our package was incomplete then we have to go back in line. Which, I would understand, but then theoretically, if our complete package was there on March 18th (as opposed to March 9th) shouldn’t it still have been assigned to a negotiator within 10 days of March 18th?

Yeah? Notsomuch.

Then they closed out our file. Our realtor’s short sale negotiator just happened to be calling for one of her regular follow up calls and she discovered they closed out the file erroneously. She was able to get it reinstated.

Finally on June 13th they assigned it to a negotiator, almost a full 90 days after a complete package was acknowledged as received. The next day they pulled it from the negotiator because they claimed it was missing the listing agreement. Keep in mind, we were told on March 18th the entire package was there.

Listing agreement was sent immediately but then we were told we had to wait for it to go through their imaging process. What used to take 48-72 hours is now up to a whopping 7-10 business days!! No wonder nothing is getting done around there!

We called every few days to confirm the listing agreement was received, and finally on July 7th, 2011, we received confirmation the listing agreement was received. But……

Our financial documents were outdated. Unfortunately the file would not be moved back to the negotiator. Seriously? The negotiator didn’t notice that when they picked up the file the first time? My realtor’s short sale negotiator called and went round and round with the first lienholder about the fact that their imaging takes 2 weeks. By the time they image the documents then spend another 10 days to assign back to a negotiator they will be outdated again.

In the meantime, a new law has been passed that a bank has 90 days to complete the short sale process from the time a complete package is received. So in theory we would have been done on June 18th (albeit they lost the listing agreement that they originally acknowledged receipt of). I can see exactly where this is going right now. They are going to have to meet the new deadlines for new applications, and those of us with applications prior to the new date are going to sit even longer while we wait for them to pull their heads out of their you-know-where’s.

Here’s the situation with our buyers: these people are GOLDEN. She’s a doctor and he’s an officer in the military. They wrote an offer almost 15k above list price. They are putting 25% down. They asked for no closing costs to be paid by the seller/bank. They wrote the contract with NO appraisal contingency, which means if the house doesn’t appraise for the sales price they don’t care- they will pay the difference. My bank is just plain idiotic not to JUMP on this deal right now. What’s going to happen is the buyers are going to get sick of waiting (keep in mind, they wrote the contract February 19th I believe). They are going to walk and we are going to wind up taking an offer at or below list price, where the bank is going to be asked to contribute up to 6% in closing costs and oh yeah, if the appraised value comes in low then the bank will have to negotiate the price even lower.

Can someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell these banks to take a look at their process and figure out exactly why they can’t get the job done? All I’m saying is, LET ME AT IT!! I will come up with an efficient process where the customer service agents don’t have to defend themselves all day and can then be free to actually be courteous to the people calling in. Imagine that….

Stay tuned, things are definitely going to get more interesting from here.

I don’t really know why I thought we would miraculously bypass going through the pains of a short sale. Maybe it’s because I had done so much research and figured I just knew everything there was to know. Maybe it’s because I didn’t think it would take all that long, even though I have heard the horror stories.

HA HA. Joke’s on me.

The timeline has gone a little something like this:

March 9, 2011: submitted short sale package to both lienholders.

March 13, 2011: realtors office called both lienholders to ensure they received packages ok. Second lienholder had, first lienholder stated items were missing in package. Resubmitted items they had mis-scanned.

March 18th, 2011: first lienholder stated package was in imaging and would be reviewed within 10 days.

March 25th, 2011: second lienholder approves short sale subject to first lienholder terms and conditions.

Fast forward. I don’t even know the dates anymore because originally I wasn’t going to blog about this. Instead of assigning the package within 10 days, the first lienholder gives us a massive runaround. We are told to wait 30-45 days for it to be assigned. We are told it would have been 10 days if everything had been there on the first attempt but since our package was incomplete then we have to go back in line. Which, I would understand, but then theoretically, if our complete package was there on March 18th (as opposed to March 9th) shouldn’t it still have been assigned to a negotiator within 10 days of March 18th?

Yeah? Notsomuch.

Then they closed out our file. Our realtor’s short sale negotiator just happened to be calling for one of her regular follow up calls and she discovered they closed out the file erroneously. She was able to get it reinstated.

Finally on June 13th they assigned it to a negotiator, almost a full 90 days after a complete package was acknowledged as received. The next day they pulled it from the negotiator because they claimed it was missing the listing agreement. Keep in mind, we were told on March 18th the entire package was there.

Listing agreement was sent immediately but then we were told we had to wait for it to go through their imaging process. What used to take 48-72 hours is now up to a whopping 7-10 business days!! No wonder nothing is getting done around there!

We called every few days to confirm the listing agreement was received, and finally on July 7th, 2011, we received confirmation the listing agreement was received. But……

Our financial documents were outdated. Unfortunately the file would not be moved back to the negotiator. Seriously? The negotiator didn’t notice that when they picked up the file the first time? My realtor’s short sale negotiator called and went round and round with the first lienholder about the fact that their imaging takes 2 weeks. By the time they image the documents then spend another 10 days to assign back to a negotiator they will be outdated again.

In the meantime, a new law has been passed that a bank has 90 days to complete the short sale process from the time a complete package is received. So in theory we would have been done on June 18th (albeit they lost the listing agreement that they originally acknowledged receipt of). I can see exactly where this is going right now. They are going to have to meet the new deadlines for new applications, and those of us with applications prior to the new date are going to sit even longer while we wait for them to pull their heads out of their you-know-where’s.

Here’s the situation with our buyers: these people are GOLDEN. She’s a doctor and he’s an officer in the military. They wrote an offer almost 15k above list price. They are putting 25% down. They asked for no closing costs to be paid by the seller/bank. They wrote the contract with NO appraisal contingency, which means if the house doesn’t appraise for the sales price they don’t care- they will pay the difference. My bank is just plain idiotic not to JUMP on this deal right now. What’s going to happen is the buyers are going to get sick of waiting (keep in mind, they wrote the contract February 19th I believe). They are going to walk and we are going to wind up taking an offer at or below list price, where the bank is going to be asked to contribute up to 6% in closing costs and oh yeah, if the appraised value comes in low then the bank will have to negotiate the price even lower.

Can someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell these banks to take a look at their process and figure out exactly why they can’t get the job done? All I’m saying is, LET ME AT IT!! I will come up with an efficient process where the customer service agents don’t have to defend themselves all day and can then be free to actually be courteous to the people calling in. Imagine that….

Stay tuned, things are definitely going to get more interesting from here.

Where do I start? I believe I posted last May/June about the possibility of not being able to keep up our investment property and that we were considering a short sale. We just kept going into the negative every month thinking there would be an end in sight. We kept thinking things would get better.

It is now February. February 26th to be exact. Things did not improve, they only got worse. Not only did my husband’s income decline by 75% for the year but in addition, my incentive (bonus) which was nearly 30% of my income completely evaporated on January 1st.

Not a good situation at all.

We made the decision to finally short-sale the home. It has been hugely emotional since then and unfortunately our experience with our tenants has been less-than-pleasant since we made them aware of our decision.

I’m not sure what would be worse, being up front with them about the short-sale and offering to help them through this or if we would have just left them in the dark, planted a “For Sale” sign in the front yard and let them just figure it out on their own.

I guess let me start with the conversation I initially had with our tenants. I spoke with the Mrs. and told her that unfortunately with our situation we had been subsidizing the mortgage by more than half even with their rental income. I also informed her that my income had decreased as well as my husband’s income had decreased. She expressed her sympathy for our situation but then informed me that her husband also had lost his job. Not to fear, she told me, they had plenty of income to sustain their housing payment. We agreed that we would come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved considering we may ask them to vacate a few months shy of the lease. We hung up.

During our conversation she told me they had already paid the February rent, although I later discovered that not to be true. She avoided my call for over a week, and when we finally did talk she told me that she had discussed our situation with her friends and she felt a fair amount of rent would be 00.00 per month.

Keep in mind, the mortgage is k per month. They were only paying 00 of that to start with. Now they generously want to pay us 00 per month to live there while we are under contract to short-sale? Also keep in mind it costs us approximately 0 per month to maintain the property even though we aren’t paying the mortgages, just with the HOA dues, home warranty, sewer, and trash.

I’m angered, to say the least.

She told me that her husband had lost his job and their daughter was going off to college in the fall. They had to pay for a graduation for her and had to buy her a new car.

How the eff is that our problem again?

I informed her that the reason we were still expecting a portion of rental income was because we anticipate they will pursue us for a deficiency. Hey, we aren’t stupid. We totally expect we will be on the hook for a portion of this short-sale, given the fact that we are expecting them to take a loss of nearly half what we owe.

She seemed to think that we were going to make out in a positive way from them paying rent and in her mind she seemed to think she shouldn’t have to pay any rent if we aren’t paying our mortgage.

Well I have news for her. I just finished taking a Business Law class. A contract is a contract. Our contract is with our tenants. They are not contracted between us and our mortgage company. Therefore, our tenants are required to pay their rent and we are required to fulfill the term of their lease. In this case, it would run through August 31st. If they pay their rent (in full) and we do not fulfill the August 31st date then WE would be considered in breach of contract and they may sue us for the actual damages they incur by our breach (ie, unexpected moving expenses, deposits, etc).

We have tried to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement where we will accept decreased rent to help offset their moving expenses, whether we are actually able to keep them there until August or not. The way I see it, if they were able to stay there through August 31st then we owe them absolutely nothing. Under our new rent terms they would have received more than enough money for moving expenses, plus that graduation party they want us to pay for. I feel that is more than fair.

Somehow though, they want to push us. They insist that they should only pay us 00 or 50 a month in rent because they don’t think that the additional money makes that much difference to us. And, in the grand scheme, it probably won’t make that much difference. When we are signing a k promissory note for our deficiency, what is 00?

At this point it’s totally the principal of the matter. We have tried hard to be fair to them, knowing that this is unfortunately not within their control. We have been forthcoming and have tried hard to come up with a plan that will pay for those losses they will undoubtedly incur if they have to vacate prior to August 31st. But their adamance that they should get to live in our home for virtually free just because they know we aren’t paying the mortgage is driving me absolutely to the brink of anger.

I told my husband tonight that if they don’t accept one of our two offers to them by March 1st that I will contact a lawyer and start the process for breach of contract. See, at this stage, we have not asked them to vacate the premises prior to the end of the lease term so we are still fulfilling our obligation (for now). They, on the other hand, withheld their February rent from us and have not agreed to modify their original lease agreement. So if they do not pay their rent in March in full (and by full, I mean 00) they are technically the ones in breach.

And don’t think at this point that one angry Momma Bear won’t pursue them for it.

They should have just taken the offer when I first made it.

Where do I start? I believe I posted last May/June about the possibility of not being able to keep up our investment property and that we were considering a short sale. We just kept going into the negative every month thinking there would be an end in sight. We kept thinking things would get better.

It is now February. February 26th to be exact. Things did not improve, they only got worse. Not only did my husband’s income decline by 75% for the year but in addition, my incentive (bonus) which was nearly 30% of my income completely evaporated on January 1st.

Not a good situation at all.

We made the decision to finally short-sale the home. It has been hugely emotional since then and unfortunately our experience with our tenants has been less-than-pleasant since we made them aware of our decision.

I’m not sure what would be worse, being up front with them about the short-sale and offering to help them through this or if we would have just left them in the dark, planted a “For Sale” sign in the front yard and let them just figure it out on their own.

I guess let me start with the conversation I initially had with our tenants. I spoke with the Mrs. and told her that unfortunately with our situation we had been subsidizing the mortgage by more than half even with their rental income. I also informed her that my income had decreased as well as my husband’s income had decreased. She expressed her sympathy for our situation but then informed me that her husband also had lost his job. Not to fear, she told me, they had plenty of income to sustain their housing payment. We agreed that we would come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved considering we may ask them to vacate a few months shy of the lease. We hung up.

During our conversation she told me they had already paid the February rent, although I later discovered that not to be true. She avoided my call for over a week, and when we finally did talk she told me that she had discussed our situation with her friends and she felt a fair amount of rent would be 00.00 per month.

Keep in mind, the mortgage is k per month. They were only paying 00 of that to start with. Now they generously want to pay us 00 per month to live there while we are under contract to short-sale? Also keep in mind it costs us approximately 0 per month to maintain the property even though we aren’t paying the mortgages, just with the HOA dues, home warranty, sewer, and trash.

I’m angered, to say the least.

She told me that her husband had lost his job and their daughter was going off to college in the fall. They had to pay for a graduation for her and had to buy her a new car.

How the eff is that our problem again?

I informed her that the reason we were still expecting a portion of rental income was because we anticipate they will pursue us for a deficiency. Hey, we aren’t stupid. We totally expect we will be on the hook for a portion of this short-sale, given the fact that we are expecting them to take a loss of nearly half what we owe.

She seemed to think that we were going to make out in a positive way from them paying rent and in her mind she seemed to think she shouldn’t have to pay any rent if we aren’t paying our mortgage.

Well I have news for her. I just finished taking a Business Law class. A contract is a contract. Our contract is with our tenants. They are not contracted between us and our mortgage company. Therefore, our tenants are required to pay their rent and we are required to fulfill the term of their lease. In this case, it would run through August 31st. If they pay their rent (in full) and we do not fulfill the August 31st date then WE would be considered in breach of contract and they may sue us for the actual damages they incur by our breach (ie, unexpected moving expenses, deposits, etc).

We have tried to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement where we will accept decreased rent to help offset their moving expenses, whether we are actually able to keep them there until August or not. The way I see it, if they were able to stay there through August 31st then we owe them absolutely nothing. Under our new rent terms they would have received more than enough money for moving expenses, plus that graduation party they want us to pay for. I feel that is more than fair.

Somehow though, they want to push us. They insist that they should only pay us 00 or 50 a month in rent because they don’t think that the additional money makes that much difference to us. And, in the grand scheme, it probably won’t make that much difference. When we are signing a k promissory note for our deficiency, what is 00?

At this point it’s totally the principal of the matter. We have tried hard to be fair to them, knowing that this is unfortunately not within their control. We have been forthcoming and have tried hard to come up with a plan that will pay for those losses they will undoubtedly incur if they have to vacate prior to August 31st. But their adamance that they should get to live in our home for virtually free just because they know we aren’t paying the mortgage is driving me absolutely to the brink of anger.

I told my husband tonight that if they don’t accept one of our two offers to them by March 1st that I will contact a lawyer and start the process for breach of contract. See, at this stage, we have not asked them to vacate the premises prior to the end of the lease term so we are still fulfilling our obligation (for now). They, on the other hand, withheld their February rent from us and have not agreed to modify their original lease agreement. So if they do not pay their rent in March in full (and by full, I mean 00) they are technically the ones in breach.

And don’t think at this point that one angry Momma Bear won’t pursue them for it.

They should have just taken the offer when I first made it.

Dear Melissa: 

I am so confused and I am not sure how to proceed. I am selling my San Marcos home as a short sale and I have missed about 8 payments. The other day my agent told me that my house is going to be foreclosed on by the bank in 7 days. I’m doing a short sale, so they cannot foreclose, right? –Confused San Marcos Short Sale Seller

Dear Confused San Marcos Short Sale Seller in San Marcos:

I’m sorry to say that you have been given some misinformation. Just because you are participating in a short sale does not mean that the bank will not foreclose on your home.

A short sale is an alternative to foreclosure and the remedy (the closing, the short sale approval, and the short sale negotiations) must all be completed before the foreclosure sale date. 

Unfortunately, the banks do not stop the foreclosure proceedings just because they have a short sale file. The good news, however, is that often times the banks will postpone the foreclosure auction in order to entertain the short sale offer that is currently on the table. 

Have your agent contact the bank and request that the sale date be postponed in order to process the short sale. If you have any questions, feel free give me a call. –Melissa

Dear Melissa: 

I am so confused and I am not sure how to proceed. I am selling my San Marcos home as a short sale and I have missed about 8 payments. The other day my agent told me that my house is going to be foreclosed on by the bank in 7 days. I’m doing a short sale, so they cannot foreclose, right? –Confused San Marcos Short Sale Seller

Dear Confused San Marcos Short Sale Seller in San Marcos:

I’m sorry to say that you have been given some misinformation. Just because you are participating in a short sale does not mean that the bank will not foreclose on your home.

A short sale is an alternative to foreclosure and the remedy (the closing, the short sale approval, and the short sale negotiations) must all be completed before the foreclosure sale date. 

Unfortunately, the banks do not stop the foreclosure proceedings just because they have a short sale file. The good news, however, is that often times the banks will postpone the foreclosure auction in order to entertain the short sale offer that is currently on the table. 

Have your agent contact the bank and request that the sale date be postponed in order to process the short sale. If you have any questions, feel free give me a call. –Melissa

Is the inbox on your desk piled high with paperwork? Do you have piles of folders, receipts, catalogs, and magazines on your kitchen counter? On your desk?

It’s so amazing all of the cool tools available to encourage us to go green, to be more productive and attempt to function paperless in the real estate world.

Here are a few of those tools: 

With respect to transaction management, there are several transaction management solutions that can help you to go paperless. Members of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR®) have free access to RELAY—an online platform for managing all of the aspects of your transaction from escrow to closing. CAR® members also get free access to ZIPform 6, an online platform where you can create and email all contracts without even printing out a single piece of paper. As part of your membership, you also gain access to Digital Ink, which is a free eSignature tool that works in conjunction with ZIPform 6. 

Another free eSignature tool is Docusign. Docusign is free to members of the National Association of Realtors® for 5 free document envelopes per month. Docusign also works in conjunction with ZIPform 6.

As you can see, if your buyer or seller has access to the Internet and a computer, you might be able to complete much or all of the transaction without even printing a single sheet of paper.

Getting all your ducks in a row, learning how to use these tools (watching online tutorials and setting them up on your computer) does take some time. So, you may want to set aside several hours to wrap your head around your paperless game. While it may take awhile to get things up and running, the payoff productivity-wise is totally worth it.

Want to learn more about agent productivity? Check out these articles:

Are You a One Man Band?

Leads Don’t Grow on Trees

It’s All About Planning Ahead

Can You Say Violation?

Learnings about Agency – Article 1 of the Code of Ethics 

I serve on the Professional Standards Committee at my local real estate board, North San Diego County Association of REALTORS, and have for several years. I’ve found it to be a tremendous learning experience, as panel after panel we discover the myriad ways that agents can misbehave, knowingly or not. It may be something done to another agent, or perhaps they mistreat a member of the public.

Certain violations appear to be more common, and in some cases easier to identify, Agency (Article 1) being one of them. I sat on a panel on Friday and while I can’t share any specifics, some aspects of this COE Article are quite clear.

In case you don’t recall the specifics, here is Article 1:

“When representing a buyer, seller, landlord, tenant, or other client as an agent, REALTORS® pledge themselves to protect and promote the interests of their client. This obligation to the client is primary, but it does not relieve REALTORS® of their obligation to treat all parties honestly. When serving a buyer, seller, landlord, tenant or other party in a non-agency capacity, REALTORS® remain obligated to treat all parties honestly. (Amended 1/01)”

Many agents seem to be pretty good at protecting and promoting the interests of their clients, and we certainly talk about that side of our role often. But some fall down in this regard, putting their own interests ahead of their clients’, or seemingly to forget they should be promoting their clients’ interests (short sale and REO transactions seem to be a problem area). We see it all the time.

Or REALTORS forget whose interests they are bound to protect, and engage in activities that violate this important aspect of agency. Sharing information that shouldn’t be shared, for example. Or not doing something they should to protect and promote the buyer’s or seller’s interests.

But protecting and promoting the interests of our clients, while primary, does NOT remove the responsibility of REALTORS to treat others honestly in a real estate transaction. And that was the crux of the problem the other day.

No doubt the respondent agent felt they were doing what they should to protect and promote the interests of their client. And no one disputed that aspect of the agency article. Problem is, the respondent wasn’t treating the other agent and client honestly and fairly in terms of what was happening with the transaction and a competing party. Ooops.

Was it intentional? Probably, but who knows. One can’t decide based on intent, and what could have been…the violation of the COE comes from what the evidence says happened.

No doubt there are many instances of ethics violations that never get reported because agents don’t want to hassle with the time, and the process. I see it as an important part of the educational process when used appropriately. There are some who can benefit from the process and the required education, and warning letters, that result.

Can You Say Violation?

Learnings about Agency – Article 1 of the Code of Ethics 

I serve on the Professional Standards Committee at my local real estate board, North San Diego County Association of REALTORS, and have for several years. I’ve found it to be a tremendous learning experience, as panel after panel we discover the myriad ways that agents can misbehave, knowingly or not. It may be something done to another agent, or perhaps they mistreat a member of the public.

Certain violations appear to be more common, and in some cases easier to identify, Agency (Article 1) being one of them. I sat on a panel on Friday and while I can’t share any specifics, some aspects of this COE Article are quite clear.

In case you don’t recall the specifics, here is Article 1:

“When representing a buyer, seller, landlord, tenant, or other client as an agent, REALTORS® pledge themselves to protect and promote the interests of their client. This obligation to the client is primary, but it does not relieve REALTORS® of their obligation to treat all parties honestly. When serving a buyer, seller, landlord, tenant or other party in a non-agency capacity, REALTORS® remain obligated to treat all parties honestly. (Amended 1/01)”

Many agents seem to be pretty good at protecting and promoting the interests of their clients, and we certainly talk about that side of our role often. But some fall down in this regard, putting their own interests ahead of their clients’, or seemingly to forget they should be promoting their clients’ interests (short sale and REO transactions seem to be a problem area). We see it all the time.

Or REALTORS forget whose interests they are bound to protect, and engage in activities that violate this important aspect of agency. Sharing information that shouldn’t be shared, for example. Or not doing something they should to protect and promote the buyer’s or seller’s interests.

But protecting and promoting the interests of our clients, while primary, does NOT remove the responsibility of REALTORS to treat others honestly in a real estate transaction. And that was the crux of the problem the other day.

No doubt the respondent agent felt they were doing what they should to protect and promote the interests of their client. And no one disputed that aspect of the agency article. Problem is, the respondent wasn’t treating the other agent and client honestly and fairly in terms of what was happening with the transaction and a competing party. Ooops.

Was it intentional? Probably, but who knows. One can’t decide based on intent, and what could have been…the violation of the COE comes from what the evidence says happened.

No doubt there are many instances of ethics violations that never get reported because agents don’t want to hassle with the time, and the process. I see it as an important part of the educational process when used appropriately. There are some who can benefit from the process and the required education, and warning letters, that result.

Del Mar Homes for Sale – Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for September 2011

Del Mar is a small coastal town in North San Diego County and one of the most expensive towns in the county. Indeed, the Del Mar real estate market currently has the most expensive home for sale in San Diego County (at M), and still holds the record for the most expensive property sold (at about ,000,000). 

READ MORE: Del Mar – Affluent Seaside Town (A Community Profile)

Having up to date information on the local Del Mar real estate market is important for buyers and sellers to make informed decisions about buying and selling Del Mar homes. Here are the statistics obtained from the MLS for Del Mar for September 2011 (the data are believed accurate but are not guaranteed, and do not include private sales). 

24 homes sold in the Del Mar real estate market in September, 50% more than in August. Here’s a summary of the activity: 

Overall sales volume shifted up fairly significantly, with a decrease in average sales prices across the board, the second month of decline for detached homes.

There were 5 Del Mar homes on the market at the end of September 2011 with a Contingent status (i.e., homes with offers being reviewed by short sale and REO lenders, 3% of the total number of homes for sale). These are included in the overall Active statistics below. 

29 homes entered the Del Mar real estate market in September, 4 fewer (down 12%) than in August. 15 Del Mar homes went pending in September, 3 less than in August.

There were 167 Del Mar homes for sale at the end of September, a downward shift by 7% from August. At the current rate of sales over a 6-month period, this represents an inventory of 7.5 months for detached homes (down from 8.8 last month), and 8.4 months for attached properties, the same as in August.

READ MORE: How Important is Inventory when Buying or Selling? Very!!  

As with any statistic, 1 month of numbers does not establish a trend, so it is important to watch what is and has been happening over a period of time. One should not draw any firm conclusions regarding pricing because of the extremes in the Del Mar real estate market, as well as the fairly small number of sales. 

Search for Del Mar Homes for Sale

Search for Del Mar Beach Colony Homes for Sale

READ MORE: 

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for August 2011

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for July 2011

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for June 2011

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for May 2011

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for April 2011

Del Mar Homes for Sale | Del Mar Real Estate Market Report for March 2011