Q4 Market Report - Big Bear City
Big Bear City Market Trends: $0-$800,000 Price Range
The following stats are for the Big Bear City Area. I have divided the Total Big Bear Area into 10 Sub Areas to give you more detailed information on the area where your property is located. Like most of Big Bear, I have broken up the Big Bear City Market into two segments Up to $800,000 property value and the Luxury Market over $800,000. This seems to be the most accurate price range to split the market. Every three months, I will post detailed quarterly market trend tables and graphs for each price range with a condensed but easy to understand examination of the market stats. If you want to just get the short version of the market in the Big Bear City Area you can skip to the bottom of each price range and read the Summary.
Market Prices
Table 1 (below) was created from the two year average price monthly graphs for the Total Big Bear Area and the 10 sub areas. Graph 1 below covers the Big Bear City Area monthly stats. I will be using the table to analyze what trends I see with Real Estate prices in the 0 - $800,000 Market in the Big Bear City Area. The table and graph have the parameters of: Price Range 0 - $800,000, from January 2021 to December of 2022.
While there will be fluctuations from quarter to quarter. The Big Bear City Area had a surprising gain of $8,000 in average price in the fourth quarter (Column 5). But this area has still lost $88,000 from the peak of March 2022 (column 7). Which still gives The Big Bear City Area a $66,000 gain over the last 2 years (column 8). But I would expect this gain to be lowered over the next few quarters. Most of the gain was in our Boom cycle which for most areas stopped in April of 2022.. This gain will now continue to go down because we are in a down cycle. We will have to see how long this down cycle will last and the influence it has on prices.
If you want to know what your Big Bear cabin is worth in this price range in the Big Bear City area, contact me to get a more detailed market analysis that takes into consideration the number of Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Square Feet, Lot size, Condition and Views or location.
Sales vs Active Listings (supply and demand)
Table 2 shows what residential real estate inventory changes (Sales vs Active listings) have occurred for the Total Big Bear Area and sub areas. It is made up of monthly graphs for each area. Graph 2 below is for the Big Bear City Area monthly stats. These stats are compiled by using a parameter of: Price Range of 0 - $800,000 from the 2-year period January 2021 to December of 2022.
You can see from column 5 that sales are up this quarter compared to last quarter by 5 and listings are down by 46. When you look at this quarter compared to the fourth quarter of last year sales are down by 22 in this quarter and listings are up by 13. This shows us that economic influences of higher rates and inflation are causing sales to go down which causes more listings on the market. Given the current economic conditions I would expect the number of listings to go up and sales to continue to decline. This will also put pressure on prices to go down. Which is what you would expect in a declining market.
Sales vs Expired Listings (strength of Sales)
Graph 3 In the Big Bear City Area, the sales to expired ratios have been at a good level the last two years. With sales and expired listings close to a 1:1 ratio. There will always be expired listings. And a 1:1 ratio is considered a good ratio for a stable market. But in the last four months we are seeing expired listings creep up to a 1:2 ratio of sales to expired listings which shows we are in a declining market that should drive prices down.
Summary
Summary
With these numbers we can say that the fourth quarter had a surprising increase in price of $8,000. And average prices are higher than 2 yeas ago by $66,000. So we still had a gain in the equity of cabins that were purchased at least 2 years ago. The bad news in the Big Bear City Area is that sales have dropped and listing have had a increase in the last quarter, This combined with the current economy is going to put a lot of pressure on prices to have a decrease in the next few quarters. Especially now that we know that we are going to stay in this declining market for at least the next few quarters.
Economic data for the fourth quarter and beyond is all pointing to a continuation of a down market.
Expect the graphs for the first quarter of 2023 to reflect a continued slow Real Estate Market.
My opinion is that we are going to see prices continue to fall. Cabins will be on the market longer. Sales will decline. It will take longer to sell cabins and we will have more expired listings because of the sellers who don’t reduce their price.
Big Bear City Market Trends: - $800,000 and Over Price Range
The following stats are for the Big Bear City Area. I have divided the Total Big Bear Area into 10 Sub Areas to give you more detailed information on the area where your property is located. Like most of Big Bear, I have broken up the Big Bear City Market into two segments Up to $800,000 property value and the Luxury Market over $800,000. This seems to be the most accurate price range to split the market. Every three months, I will post detailed quarterly market trend tables and graphs for each price range with a condensed but easy to understand examination of the market stats. If you want to just get the short version you can skip to the bottom and read the Summary.
Because of the low amount of sales in the Big Bear City Area in this price range, there is statistically not enough turn over to give us accurate information. A better indicator would be the Total Luxury Market in Big Bear. But I will use the graphs to try and give us an idea of the Big Bear City Area. Remember that these are upscale custom homes where a view or furnishings can make a big difference in price. Each Cabin has to be analyzed on it's on merit.
Market Prices
In this price range there can be a difference of $400,000 or more in the monthly average price. Because of this volatility I will be using the annual averages instead of the monthly averages for the $800,000 and up Luxury market to analyze how prices are trending.
Table 1 (below) was created from the last three years, average annual price graph (graph 1) for the Total Big Bear Area and the 10 sub areas. I will be using this table to analyze what trends I see with Real Estate prices in the $800,000 and up Market in these areas. The table and graph have the parameters of: Price Range $800,000 and up, from January 2020 to December of 2022. I have also printed the monthly graph (Graph 2) for the Big Bear City Area if you want to look at it.
In the Big Bear City Area, in 2022 this area has had a price decrease in the last 3 years. What started out with an average price in 2020, of $1,060,000 brought us to $975,000 through 2022. For a decrease of $85,000 (column 6). And the Big Bear City Area has a $305,000 lower price than the Total Big Bear Area (Column 7). This decrease has brought the Big Bear City Area to a ranking of 10 out of 10 areas in average price for 2022 in this price range. So overall you can see that the prices in the Luxury Market for the Big Bear City Area have taken a hit the last few years, and is doing much worse than the Total Big Bear Area and all of the sub areas overall. To see how the prices in the other sub areas have done for comparison please refer to Table 1 below or check out the write up on that area.
If you want to know what your Big Bear cabin is worth in this price range in the Big Bear City Area, contact me to get a more detailed market analysis that takes into consideration the number of Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Square Feet, Lot size, Condition and Views or location.
Sales vs Active Listings (supply and demand)
Because of the low amount of sales in the Big Bear City Area, there is statistically not enough turn over to give us accurate information. A better indicator would be the Total Luxury Market in Big Bear. But I will use the graphs to try and give us an idea of the Big Bear City Area. Remember that these are upscale custom homes where a view or furnishings can make a big difference in price. Each Cabin has to be analyzed on it's on merit.
Table 2 shows what residential real estate inventory changes (Sales vs Active listings) have occurred for the Total Big Bear Area and sub areas. It is made up of monthly graphs for each area. Graph 3 below is for the Big Bear City Area monthly stats. These stats are compiled by using a parameter of: Price Range of $800,000 and up from the 2-year period January 2021 to December of 2022.
You can see from column 5 that sales are down this quarter compared to last quarter by 3 and listings are up by 2. When you look at this quarter compared to the fourth quarter of last year sales are down by 1 in this quarter and listings are up by 4. This shows us that economic influences of higher rates and inflation are causing sales to go down which causes more listings on the market. The more listings also cause the prices to go down as we saw in the pricing section. Given the current economic conditions I would expect the number of listings to go up and sales to continue to decline. This will also put pressure on prices to go down. Which is what you would expect in a declining market.
Graph 4 In the Big Bear City Area, the sales to expired ratios are still good with sales and expired listings close to a 1:1 ratio. There will always be expired listings. And a 1:1 ratio is considered a good ratio for a stable market. This chould get worse over the next two quarters.
Summary
Because of the low amount of sales in the Big Bear City Area, there is statistically not enough turn over to give us accurate information. A better indicator would be the Total Luxury Market in Big Bear. But I will use the graphs to try and give us an idea of the Big Bear City Area. Remember that these are upscale custom homes where a view or furnishings can make a big difference in price. Each Cabin has to be analyzed on it's on merit.
With these numbers we can say that the last 2 years the Big Bear City Area has a decrease of $85,000 in average price. And the area average price is $305,000 lower than the total Big Bear Area. Sales have remained low and listings and expired listings have started to go up. For vacation homes in a luxury market this is a declining market for now. We will have to see how the influence of negative economic factors and increased listings and expired listings affect this market.
Economic data for the fourth quarter and beyond is all pointing to a continuation of a down market.
Expect the graphs for the first quarter of 2023 to reflect a continued slow Real Estate Market.
My opinion is that we are going to see prices continue to fall. Cabins will be on the market longer. Sales will decline. It will take longer to sell cabins and we will have more expired listings because of the sellers who don’t reduce their price.