Interesting

President -elect Barack Obama recently named New York City housing commissioner Shaun Donovan to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. What you may not know is that Donovan once worked at Prudential . Before he joined New York's Housing Preservation and Development Department in 2004. Donovan was the managing director of Federal Housing Authority and affordable housing investments for Prudential Mortgage Capital Co.

Fed lowers rate

Fed has lowered rates lower than ever before and promises to do more to help the economy.

Did you know?

TV's , computers and other electronics account for 15% or $352,50 of an average household's annual energy bill? The energy consumed by idle devices --ones that are plugged in but are not being used--accounts for about $264. Best: Get a power strip so that multiple electronics can be plugged into one. strip that can be easily unplugged. Or, unplug each appliance each day when not being used-toasters, can openers, mobile chargers, etc.

The Bottom?

On Dec. 15, the Desert Sun said the economists thought we had hit bottom. What do you think?

Sun City Palm Desert Stats-November

There are 199 active listings presently on the market, from $229,000 for 1283 sq. ft to $1,025,000 for a Marseille on a double lot on the fairway.

From 11/01/08 to 11/30/08 there were 6 pending sales , from $229,000 for 1366 sq. ft, to $529,900 for a St. Tropez at 2588 sq. ft.

For the same period, there were 5 solds from $250,000 for 1548 sq. ft to $389,000 for a Montego with casita at 2034 sq. f. These were probably all put in escrow before the financial meldown on wall street.

If you look back at my blogs on stats for the previous months you can really tell the difference. However, the president of Real Data Strategies said Palm Desert has a "healthy" market so not as many foreclosures , therefore not as many sales. Palm Desert had 12% more sales this year than last and prices were down 16% over last year. Indio saw price declines of 45% from a year ago. Obviously more people had bad loans, in that area ,with all the new construction.

Interessting facts

C.A.R (California Assn. of Realtors) statistics for Oct. :

1. C.A.R,'s Unsold Inventory Index for existing single-family detached homes in October 2008 was 5.9 months compared with 15.2 months for the same period a year ago. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.

6 month statistics

In Sun City Palm Desert there were 82 sales in the last 6 months. But, most of those were probably executed before the October melt down in the stock market.
The average price was $380,000 with days on the market between 105 and 150 days. The longer a property remained on the market the less % of List Price the owner realized. )-30 days the price was 95.98% of List Price. 120 days or more owners received only 93% of list price