In O.C., staging’s the name of the game
A CNNMoney survey of 27 economists issued on Friday shows most of them expect the market to continue its decline, and it won’t turn around anytime soon. The median forecast from the survey was for a 3.9% fall in the Case-Shiller home price Index in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, and a 2.

Qualified buyer pool shrinking because of fear
You may have read past references to the current economic situation (not here, mind you) as a “jobless recovery.” Some of us are still trying to figure out just what that means, but in the meantime we’ve settled on this: “The jobless rate you see is the new normal.

SoCal housing market improves slightly in June
“The housing market remains dysfunctional and lopsided, just somewhat less so than it was a few months or a year ago,” Data- Quick President John Walsh said. “The market mix indicates that a lot of potential buyers are either stuck, for lack of equity, or spooked and are waiting things out.

SMITH
Perspective is in order, too. The common reaction of agents and sellers is the “silo effect,” which is a narrow view of the market in which they operate. It’s easy to be short-sighted when your living depends on selling homes or when you need to sell your house to take a new job out of town, but patience and that perspective are important.