Real estate in California is selling faster because much of it is bank-owned property that is priced low to sell, Green said. Banks are selling homes below market value, and people are taking advantage of lower prices, he said.
Rosalie Klein, a Realtor at Prudential in West Hollywood, said the stock market drop in September led some clients to back out of buying homes, especially cash buyers and foreign buyers.
"There was a lot of fear," she said. "A lot of people who had cash . . . their portfolios shrank tremendously, and everybody had financial advisors advising them to cancel the deal because their portfolio shrank."
The collapse of the Asian and European markets also made foreign buyers more reluctant to buy, Klein said. "Those buyers also took one step back to wait and see what was going to happen," she said.
It's unclear when the housing market will rebound, Green said. "It's going to get better," he said. "Exactly when that's going to happen is hard to say right now."
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catherine.ho@latimes.com
