As the spring home buying season gathers steam, the number of homes on the market continued the increase which began four weeks ago. Demand during the most recent period was essentially unchanged from two weeks ago. At www.OC180NEWS.com we run the numbers for the two weeks ending February 18, 2010.

This is the third consecutive biweekly report where the inventory, or supply, of active Orange County residential real estate listings increased. The number of homes on the market hit a recent low of 7,293 back on January 7, 2010. Since that low mark, the supply of homes on the market has increased by 842 units, or 11.5%, to 8,135.

Demand, aka new pending sales, also hit its low mark on January 7 and has come roaring back since. For the most recent two weeks, demand was essentially unchanged from the previous report. But, the data for 2/04/2010 and 1/21/2010, indicated demand took off right after the beginning of the year. It has maintained that level for the most recent report.

Cumulatively, demand has expanded by 979 units—43.2% higher than the January low. For the two weeks ending February 18, 2010, demand was at 3,244, compared with 3,248 two weeks earlier. Last year at this time, demand was only 2,819, and there were 29.5% more homes on the market.

As for the long expected flood of new foreclosures, we still are not seeing it in Orange County. Unlike our last report, when we saw the actual number of distressed homes on the market fall for the first time since last October, in the new report, the number of distressed homes on the market increased slightly. After falling by 23 units two weeks ago, it rebounded by 55 homes in the new report. At a total of 2,706 distressed homes, the number is still lower than it was on January 21, 2010 and much lower than it was last year at this time. In fact, last year, the distressed homes on the market were nearly double the number of homes sold in one month. Now, with higher sales combined with fewer distressed homes on the market, they are considerably less than a month worth of sales.

In this article series we report on the numbers for Orange County in total. Real estate is very local and any buying or selling decisions should be based on the circumstances of the specific neighborhood involved. This series is intended to provide information about the general countywide trends in supply and demand.

All of the real estate data in this article is from a report published by Steven Thomas of Altera Real Estate.

This report appears on www.OC180NEWS.com every other Monday.