Q4 Market Report - Castle Glen

Castle Glen Market Trends: $800,000 And Over Price Range

The following stats are for the Castle Glen 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. Unlike most of Big Bear, I didn’t break up the Castle Glen Market into two segments, Up to $800,000 property value and the Luxury Market over $800,000. Because there really isn’t any sales in this area below $800,000. 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.

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..

Because of the low amount of sales in the Castle Glen 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 Castle Glen 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 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 Castle Glen Area if you want to look at it.

In the Castle Glen area, in 2022 it has continued with the price increase that it has been enjoying the last 3 years. What started out with an average price in 2020, of $1,089,000 brought us to $1,491,000 through 2022. For an increase of $303,000 (Column 6). And the Castle Glen area has a $211,000 higher increase over the Total Big Bear Area (Column 7). These two increases have brought the Castle Glen area to a ranking of 3 out of 10 areas in average price for 2022 (Column 5). So overall you can see that the prices in the Luxury Market for Castle Glen have had a large increase the last few years, and is doing much better than the Total Big Bear Area and most 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 the Castle Glen 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 Castle Glen 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 Castle Glen 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 Castle Glen 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 the same this quarter compared to last quarter and listings are down by 2. But when you look at this quarter compared to the fourth quarter, last year sales are down by 1 in this quarter and listings are up by 5 (Column 6). Also we can see that there has only been one sale since August. Given the current economic conditions I would expect the number of listings to go up and sales to decline, just like we have seen this last quarter. This will also put pressure on prices to go down. Which is what you would expect in a declining market. It will be interesting to see if the pressure of so many listings finally start to drive the annual average price down.

Sales vs Expired Listings (strength of Sales)

Graph 4 In the Castle Glen area, the sales to expired ratios have been at a good level. With sales and expired listings close to a 1:1 ratio for the past few quarters. There will always be expired listings. And a 1:1 ratio is considered a good ratio for a stable market. But in the last two quarters we are seeing a 1:2 ratio of sales to expired listings which shows we are in a declining market that should drive prices down. Because there is so little data from this graph I would expect this ratio to change from quarter to quarter.

Summary

Because of the low amount of sales in the Castle Glen 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 Eagle Knolls 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 fourth quarter in the Castle Glen area still has a nice increase in prices that have preserved the equity build up of $303,000 over the last three years. Sales have started to drop with only 1 sale in this quarter. and expired listings have started to go up. We will have to see how the influence of the high interest rates and the economy with 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.