While the drop in prices has prompted a surge of aggressive shopping for mid-priced homes, buyers are having little luck in securing adequate financing and winning crowded bidding wars caused by the shortage of property on sale, said Keith Sorem, a Glendale-based agent for Keller Williams Real Estate.
“They’re frustrated because there’s nothing to buy,” Sorem said of shoppers in the strained market.
Despite increasing demand, the climate for home sales may not change soon because of continuing market uncertainty, said Robert Bridges, associate professor of real estate finance at the USC Marshall School of Business.
Concerns about rising unemployment rates, California’s financial crisis and the lingering effects of the nationwide mortgage meltdown have prompted banks to employ increasingly conservative lending practices, Bridges said.
And many homeowners have opted to hold on to their property, rather than trying to sell during a bumpy recession that had experts predicting price rebounds just two months ago, he said.
“There are just a lot of wild cards out there that make economic conditions uncertain at this point,” he said.
With homeowners delaying sales, buyers have found themselves in increasingly tight competition for a shrinking supply of property, and are often handicapped by lenders, said Dan Soderstrom, a Burbank-based agent for GMAC Real Estate.
Banks are hesitant to offer large loans, and appraisers often value properties below prices agreed to between buyers and sellers after shoppers compete to drive up costs, Soderstrom said.
When banks offer loans below agreed-upon prices, buyers are forced to either make up the difference with cash, or give up the property altogether, he said.
At that point, shoppers have to ask themselves, “How bad do you want it?” Soderstrom said.
