Is it Harder to Get a Loan?

The Federal Reserve recently published their quarterly survey of 84 banks. The survey asks each bank to summarize it's trends and lending standards and if each bank's lending guidelines are becoming more or less restrictive.

About 75% of the surveyed banks said their standards have tightened for residential mortgage loans. To quote the somewhat dry language of the report, "Large majorities of domestic respondents reported having tightened their lending standards...over the previous three months. About 80%...noted that they had tightened their lending standards...for revolving home equity lines of credit."

Based on what I hear from clients and friends on the banking side, the percentage will probably approach 90% next quarter.

Water Credits

I recently updated my page on water credits, and their significance. If you find the concept a little confusing visit www.malonehodges.com/water for an overview.

Water credits are an important consideration in determining a Monterey Peninsula property's value.

Carmel...This Year Compared to Last

Over the last few days I have had a discussion with several clients about how the market "feels" compared to last year.

I decided to run some comparisons and see what the numbers say:

It is pretty clear what a difference a year can make. The orange bar is the 90 day median price trend line from a year ago. The black line is this year.

If you crunch the data for median price per square foot we would expect to see a similar curve, and here it is:

And finally, again as one would expect, inventory for the greater Carmel area is well above levels of a year ago. There does seem to be a leveling off of inventory over the last several weeks.