A market overview: ‘It’s pretty ugly out there’

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This wide-ranging market overview, to be published in Sunday’s L.A. Times, but now available online, is worth checking out. Headline: ‘The Muted Market.’

Highlights:

--’It’s pretty ugly out there,’ says longtime Coldwell Banker broker David Toyama. He says business is down 50% from last year.

--Inventory, expressed in months to sell, is running nearly three times greater than historical averages. In February, inventory in L.A. County stood at 21.2 months’ worth of sales -- up from 10.6 months a year ago.

--One seller learned the hard (expensive) way how not to sell into a declining market: She listed her West Covina house for $600,000 in February 2007, reduced it to $550,000, then $480,000, then $460,000. She finally sold it after 11 months on the market, for $440,000.

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Photo Credit: L.A. Times