By JONATHAN LANSNER

Placentia or Yorba Linda: Which home market’s in better shape?

Every two weeks, Orange County broker Steve Thomas publishes a report on the supply of local homes for sale. Here’s what the latest report — as of October 13 — has to say …
PLACENTIA

• 139 residences listed in brokers’ MLS system with 60 new deals opening in the past 30 days.
• By Thomas’s math, this community has a “market time” (months in would take to sell all inventory at current pace of new escrows) of 2.32 months vs. 3.14 months found two weeks earlier vs. 3.15 months seen a year earlier. Countywide, latest market time was 3.46 months vs. 4.12 months a year ago.
• So, homes in this community sell — in theory — in 33% less time than the countywide pace.
• Of the homes listed for sale in this community, 66 were either foreclosures being resold or short sales, where sellers owe more than the home’s value. So distressed properties were 47.5% of supply of homes for sale vs. 35.3% countywide.
• Homes for sale in Placentia represent 1.4% of Orange County inventory — and 1.9% of all the distressed homes listed for sale in Orange County. New escrows here are 2.1% of all Orange County’s new pending sales.

YORBA LINDA

• 312 residences listed in brokers’ MLS system with 86 new deals opening in the past 30 days.
• By Thomas’s math, this community has a “market time” (months in would take to sell all inventory at current pace of new escrows) of 3.63 months vs. 3.45 months found two weeks earlier vs. 5.07 months seen a year earlier. Countywide, latest market time was 3.46 months vs. 4.12 months a year ago.
• So, homes in this community sell — in theory — in 5% more time than the countywide pace.
• Of the homes listed for sale in this community, 107 were either foreclosures being resold or short sales, where sellers owe more than the home’s value. So distressed properties were 34.3% of supply of homes for sale vs. 35.3% countywide.
• Homes for sale in Yorba Linda represent 3.1% of Orange County inventory — and 3.0% of all the distressed homes listed for sale in Orange County. New escrows here are 3.0% of all Orange County’s new pending sales.

Compare these trends to countywide patterns:

• Cities with highest level of distressed properties among their listings? Portola Hills was tops — 70.0% — followed by Ladera Ranch at 63.9% of listings and Rancho Santa Marg. at 63.1% of listings.
• Fewest? Seal Beach was tops — 3.8% — followed by Corona Del Mar at 4.8% of listings and Newport Beach at 8.9% of listings.

Orange County broker Steve Thomas publishes every two weeks a report on the supply of local homes for sale and the share of that inventory that’s distressed properties — foreclosures and short sales. His latest report — as of October 13 — says …

• 3,544 distressed Orange County properties were listed for sale — 35% of the 10,044 listed overall.
• 1,509 new escrows were opened to buy distressed Orange County properties in the past 30 days. That is 52% of the 2,899 new pending sales countywide.
• Thomas calculated “market time” — a cross of supply and new escrows showing how long, theorhetically, it would take to sell inventory. Using that “market time” math, there’s 2.35 months worth of distressed properties on the market vs. 4.68 months worth of non-distrssed homes. So, distressed homes currently sell 2.0 times faster than non-distressed homes.
• 20% of the distressed listings were foreclosures being sold by banks.
• 80% of the distressed listings were short sales, homes sold by owners who owe more than the projected sales price.
• 48% of the distressed listings were attached homes; 52% of the distressed listings were detached homes.
• 81 of the listed distressed homes were price above $1 million — 2% of all distressed listings.
• 2,760 of the listed distressed homes were price$500,00 or less — 78% of all distressed listings.
• Chart summarizes trends in Thomas’ report, distressed counts and share of all listings (plus, pending sales and market time — demand divided by inventory.)

Thomas writes: “Since mid-July, the distressed inventory has dropped by 6%. For the remainder of the year, expect the distressed inventory to not change much.”