Are we really in for a surprisingly robust real estate market this summer?
It's about the pace of the change between this year and last
I am trying to wrap my head around the latest data, which seem to show that home sales are increasing month-to-month and year-over-year in both San Bernardino and (to a much lesser extent) Riverside County.
Compared to April 2024, sales were up month-to-month in April 2025, and the year-over-year growth is also impressive. We're seeing stronger activity in San Bernardino than Riverside County. That's all according to California Association of Realtors data (here). See the chart below. The statistics are not seasonally adjusted, which is why I’m comparing what we saw at the same time last year to this year. Things are clearly up, especially in San Bernardino County.
Other metrics also look promising. While on a year-over-year basis both Unsold Inventory and Median Days on Market are up from 2024, the *change* in these metrics between January and April indicate strength heading into the spring/early summer buying season. For example, Unsold Inventory in San Bernardino dropped 6.1 to 4.6 between January 2025 and April 2025, and it dropped 5.2 to 4.2 in Riverside. Changes were similar across the two years in Riverside, indicating little progress, but not necessarily true for San Bernardino - where we saw much greater progress.
This chart shows that San Bernardino’s UII (an index for unsold inventory) is higher in 2025 than it was in 2024, but the change in the first four months of 2025 has been higher than in 2024 by a wide margin. The UII dropped from just 4 to 3.8 in the first 4 months of 2024, but has dropped 6.1 to 4.5, or 1.6 points, in the first 4 months of 2025.
The only people who can tell us for sure whether there really is any kind of warming going into this season would be agents or others talking to prospective borrowers.
This is potentially big news, if true.