Latest / Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life / Santa Clarita Daily Market 9/3/2026: The Cut Tax, 63 Days vs 13

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Santa Clarita Daily Market 9/3/2026: The Cut Tax, 63 Days vs 13 · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: 775 people stood up on Reddit this week and begged sellers to stop putting AI altered photos on their listings, or at least the real estate agents.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fake grass, fake furniture, a kitchen that doesn't exist.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the same morning that thread hit the top of the board.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: 86 Santa Clarita sellers cut their asking price.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: $2,423,391 came off list prices in this valley in seven days.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And those two things are the same story.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to prove it to you before we're done.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you happen to be tuning in, everything you're about to hear comes off the CRMLS feed that I have put into Santa ClaritaOpenhouses.com.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was pulled at 7.25 a.m.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: this morning, Thursday, September 3rd, 2026.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers on the site update themselves.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: The read is mine.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So three listings today.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: The valley sitting at 3.8 months of inventory.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And inside that one number, there are three different markets, and two of them are not sellers' markets.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: The share of sellers closing above asking stepped down again this morning, lower than Tuesday, lower than the 90-day number, lower than the 180-day number as well, while the price itself hasn't moved.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I have the anatomy of a price cut.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The actual math on what it costs a Santa Clarita seller to cut versus what it costs to price it right the first time.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now that last one is the whole show.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on to number one for me, 63, one number.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to touch it for about six minutes, but when I come back to it, it's going to explain why the sellers who chase this market end up chasing it all fall.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the board.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: 817 homes active across the Santa Clarita Valley this morning.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's up three from last Thursday.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: 108 more are in backup position, meaning that the seller accepted an offer and is still taking backups behind it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: 189 are in escrow.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's up four on the week.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: 17 are marked coming soon.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: 43 homes closed in the last seven days.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's down five from the week before.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: 213 closed in the last 30 days.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now if you do the division, 817 active divided by 213 closings is 3.8 months of inventory.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Under four months, and the seller holds the leverage.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Four to six is a balanced market.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Over six, and then the buyer starts running the table.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now on paper, we're a seller's market this morning.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now watch what happens when we take that number apart.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: 474 single-family homes for sale against 157 closings in 30 days, 3.0 months.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Houses are in a seller's market, no argument.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now 210 condominiums against 32 closings, 6.6 months, that's a buyer's market full stop.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: 114 townhomes against 21 closings, 5.4 months, that's balanced, leaning toward the buyer.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your walls decide your market before your city gets a vote.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you own a house here, this morning is on your side.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you own a condo, the person walking through the door on Saturday has options and they know it.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: City by city, 30-day closings.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Valencia, 242 active, 81 closed, 3.0 months.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Median closed, 829,527 days.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Saugus, 108 active, 34 closed, 3.2 months.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Median$826,000 in 33 days.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Castac 54 active, 17 closed, 3.2 months.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Median$742,450 in 39 days.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Stevenson Ranch, 37 active, 12 closed, 3.1 months.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's median$1,133,000 in 49 days.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Canyon Country, 179 active, 37 closed, 4.8 months.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Median 775,000 in 51 days.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Newhall, 99 active, 20 closed, 5 months, median, 658,500.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: In 32 days, Acton, 45 active, 5 closed, that's 9 months.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Aqua Dulce is going to be 23 active, 2 closed, 11.5 months.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the four core cities in the middle of the valley are under 3.3 months.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Canyon Country and Newhall are soft spots at 4.8 and 5.0 months.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those cities are carrying heavy condo inventory.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Canyon Country has 57 condos for sale and closed five of them last month.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a Canyon Country problem.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's a condo problem wearing a Canyon Country address.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now the price.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: The median closed price in this valley over the last 30 days is$810,000.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Price per square foot,$415.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last seven days,$806,000 and$418 a foot.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Single family homes closed at a median of$880,000.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Condos at$497,000, townhomes at$586,500.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the part that matters.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: The seven-day price and the 30-day price are within half of 1% of each other.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Prices in Santa Clarita are not falling.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are parked.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But parked is not the same as strong.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this next number is the one I watch every single morning.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 180 days, 31.7% of Santa Clarita's sellers closed above their asking price.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 90 days, that number comes to 29.7.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 30 days, 27%.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And on Tuesday, that same 30-day rating was 28.2%.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Every window is lower than the one before it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Same prices, fewer bidding wars.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: The buyer is paying what the house is worth and not a dollar more.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the seller who priced for last spring's buyer is the one making the news.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now flip it over.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: 49.5% of everything that closed here in the last 30 days closed below the final asking price, roughly half.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Median discount from the final price,$19,000.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the sellers who did get over asking, the 27%, got a median of$15,000 over and did it in 13 days.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The sellers who closed under asking took 41 days and 30 days versus 41, 13 days versus 41.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: The market is telling you the same thing in every city.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: The house that's priced right gets rewarded in two weeks.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: The house that's priced hopeful gets punished for six.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: 63, here it is.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now over that last 180 days, 1,343 homes closed in this valley.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: 463 of them, that's 34.5%, cut their price at least once before they sold.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: The median cut was$30,000.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's about 4%.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the number I told you to hold.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: The sellers who cut took a median of 63 days to close.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: The sellers who never cut took 13.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the sellers and the cutters did not just lose time.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They closed at 95% of their original asking price.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: The sellers who priced it right the first time closed at 100% of asking.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Call it the cut tax.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's 50 extra days on the market and about 5% of your original number.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's paid out one, it's paid by one out of every three sellers in Santa Clarita.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why 86 price reductions in a week is a headline.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those are not 86 sellers who suddenly learned something about the market.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those are 86 sellers who priced against the market in July, sat through August, and are now paying the cut tax in September.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Valencia had 27 of them, Canyon Country 19, New Hall 16, Saugus 12, Castac 7, and only six sellers in the whole valley raised a price.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And 19 homes came back on the market after an escrow fell apart.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the number nobody reads out loud, and it's why I never call a home sold until the deed records.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me back to those AI photos.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Reddit thread, 775 votes, 91 comments, is buyers telling us they walked into a house that did not match the picture and they felt lied to.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: In this market, that's not a marketing mistake.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pricing mistake in disguise.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: A house that photographs like$900,000 and shows like$800,000 is going to sit, get cut, and pay the tax.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: The photo wrote a check, the house can't cash.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're thinking about listing, the fastest way to lose 50 days is to let the software decide what your house looks like.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of sitting, 236 of the 817 active homes have been on the market more than 60 days.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: 29% of everything for sale.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Acton is worse at 38%, Aqua Dulce 35%, Valencia 32%, and the oldest listing in Valencia has been sitting for 480 days.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Castag has the cleanest inventory in the valley at 19% stale.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Stevenson Ranch 22, Saugus 23.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now who's actually buying?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where the second half of strategy lives.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last 12 months, 59.7% of Santa Clarita closings were conventional loans.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: 12.5% were FHA, and those buyers took 38 days to close on a median sales price of$745,000.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: 10.6% were cash, median sales price of$729,000, and cash buyers paid 98.7% of asking.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else paid 100%.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, even cash gets a discount here, about 1.3%, but not the 10% your uncle thinks.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now VA loans were 5.3% of the valley, and in New Hall only 2.2%.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a seller in New Hall under$700,000, the FHA buyer is your buyer.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the FHA buyers need the roof, the water heater, and the peeling paint handled before the appraisal shows up, not after.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Open houses, 131 on the board as of this morning.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Two today, 2 to 3 p.m., 8 tomorrow, 65 on Saturday, and 52 on Sunday.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: On Tuesday morning, there were 27 open houses on the board.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: This morning, 131.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The first real weekend after Labor Day and every agent in the valley is out.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: 58 of the 131 are in Valencia, Canyon Country, has 28, Saugus 19, Stevenson Ranch 9, New Hall 8, Castac 6, Acton 1 so far, Aqua Dulce 0 so far.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And again, if you want that full list with times and places and all that fancy stuff, Santa Clarita, openhouses.com.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it updates as agents add them.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll see everything reflected there.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: The top question on the site this week was exactly that there are uh that there are open houses this weekend.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are there?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, 117 of them so far.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Probably up around the 250s by the time we get done Saturday morning.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, rates, because the buyer walking into those open houses has a different number in their pocket than the buyer from June.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Freddie Mac's weekly survey printed 6.66% on the 30-year fix last Thursday, and coverage of that number is calling it a one-year high.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: The daily reads this week have been running between 6.81 and 6.87%.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: The next Freddie Mac print is today, and it should catch up to the daily.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it going up?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Fed meets September 15th and 16th.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: As of this week, the market puts the odds of a quarter point hike, not a cut, and that's a hike, at about two out of three.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: The month ago, it was a coin flip.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: The private payroll report on Wednesday came out at 38,000 jobs for August, the weakest month since January.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Job openings on Tuesday were 7.3 million flat.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And tomorrow at 8.30 Eastern, the government jobs report drops.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's that single biggest mover of your mortgage rate this month.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Economists are looking for somewhere between 25,000 and 58,000 jobs and an unemployment rate holding at 4.1%.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a weak number, and a weak number does push rates down.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: A strong number locks the hike in.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: What that means on your street, well, in$810,000, Santa Clarita closed with a 20% down.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The move from 6.66 to 6.87% is about$91 a month.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the number that kills the deal.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: The number that kills the deal is the buyer who is pre-approved in June at one payment and walks into your open house on Saturday with a smaller one.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the over asking share keeps stepping down while prices hold.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The buyer didn't leave.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: The buyer got a smaller box to work with.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the counterweight because this is not a scary market.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a picky market.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: 43 homes close this week.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: 189 are in escrow right now.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: The four core cities are all under 3.3 months of supply.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: The median price is held within half a percent for 30 days.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the Almanac says the single family median in this valley is up 51.9% from 2017, sitting about 4,500 under its 2024 peak.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's losing their equity this month.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: What they're losing is time.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And only the ones who price against the tape.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Put it in history for a second.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: 2021, the Valley closed 2,968 sales of houses, condos, and townhomes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And a single family home took a median of seven days to go under contract.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Through August of this year, 1,579 sales in 23 days.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Same prices roughly, half the volume, three times the weight.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you learn the market in 2021, everything you know about pricing is wrong.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not an insult, it's a calendar.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Reddit board also had a seller asking whether it's okay to change agents after six months of silence.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty-six people answered, here's mine.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Six months in this valley is three times longer than the sellers who paid the cut tax took to close.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your agent's job is to show you the 13-day number and the 63-day number before you sign, not after.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't get the numbers, you didn't get the representation.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, mark these dates.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Today, the Freddie Mac rate print.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, Friday, September 4th, the August Jobs Report at 8.30 Eastern Standard Time.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: September 15th and 16th, the Fed.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this weekend, 117 open houses so far.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest board of the season.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Three things to keep.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: 3.8 months valley wide, but houses are at 3.0.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Condos are 6.6.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So know which market you actually live in.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: 27% of sellers are still closing over asking, down from 31.7 over the last six months.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they're doing it in 13 days by pricing on the tape.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the cut tax is real.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: One in three sellers pays it, 63 days instead of 13, and 5% of their original number.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, Stevenson Ranch, the one sitting in this valley where 8.8% of sellers beat their asking price over 90 days, and 61.8% closed under it at a median of$1,133,000.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's the most expensive zip code in the valley, and it's one where the buyer happens to be winning.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to show you why that number on the sign is doing that.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: The photo doesn't sell the house, but the price does.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the price you pick in a week, in week one, decides whether the market rewards you in 13 days or taxes you for 63.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: All of these numbers buy city, buy property, tape, type live and dated or at Santa ClaritaOpenhouses.com.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor with Honor, be safe out there, and I will see you tomorrow.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.