Joseph & Cheryl Melendez's (melendezteam) Blog

  The Good Old Gold StandardUnder the gold standard the money supply, thus credit, was severely restricted. So too, were economic growth and inflation. Most short-term lending was provided by local banks where consumers and businesses kept their money for the short-term (checking accounts) and lo...

It was hard to miss this August 19th headline in the Orange County Register.  In fact, it was an end to the longest home buying slump on record.  Never mind that the slump ending is directly attributable to still increasing foreclosures, and a still decreasing median home price.  After all, the b...

DON'T WAIT TOO LONG; THE BOTTOM WILL HIT 3 MONTHS BEFORE YOU KNOW IT...  So what does all this mean?  Well, for one thing it does take 60 days to accumulate most data and another 30 to spread it around to the media and the public.  This does make it difficult to ascertain the exact bottom of the ...

   Real estate economist Richard K. Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, was interviewed by Jeff Collins of the OC Register.  For a complete transcript of his interview, just give us a call and we will email to you.  Essentially Green thinks 2010 is still about right for the re...

The total number of sales for Orange County in July, (the last month available) is 2,799, a staggering 45% increase from June and up 17.1% over July a year ago.  The overall median price is $461,000 and that is off 6.9% from June and down 28% from a year ago.  The most amazing number is the numbe...

The total number of sales for Orange County in July, (the last month available) is 2,799, a staggering 45% increase from June and up 17.1% over July a year ago.  The overall median price is $461,000 and that is off 6.9% from June and down 28% from a year ago.  The most amazing number is the numbe...

This is a buyer's market so obviously the numbers are encouraging to them, not sellers.  But, if you think the market is stagnant, if you think people are sitting around waiting, you would be wrong.  It is not unusual for any property under $600,000, but especially for a bank owned one to have 6 ...

, The Kiplinger Editors have interesting data on Southern California.  It is important to mention because again, they are experts on California and their information is regional, not national.  What do they say?  Tourism is getting a huge boost because of how strong the Euro is right now.  "High ...

Real Estate Economics, a homebuilder consulting firm in Irvine has this to say about the Orange County housing market: "Opportunity/Risk Index currently resides slightly below equilibrium, but the trend is toward equilibrium.  Any O/R index above equilibrium represents market opportunity, and any...

This is probably the biggest hurdle the real estate industry has to get over in the minds of consumers.  Unfortunately a lot of the news out there is the dismal outlook for national housing.  Regions such as the mid-west, specific cities such as Detroit, or sub-prime havens such as Riverside and ...