Claremont Insider: Local Blog News

Monday, January 28, 2008

Local Blog News

There are a couple new blogs on the block worth noting.

The Pomona Public Library's Children's Department has started a blog. Thanks to Goddess of Pomona for listing that.


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Also, there's a new real estate blog called the "Route 66 Neighborhoods and Real Estate Blog." The blog, published by Jennifer Castillo, had an interesting post back on January 21st about the absorption rate for the Claremont Unified School District's area:

ABSORPTION RATE is the mathematical representation of the relationship between supply and demand. The total amount of available product is divided by the total amount of product sold in the previous month. The resulting number represents the number of months it would take, at that same pace, to sell the entire inventory of product.

“Normal Market” conditions exist when the Absorption Rate is between 5 and 6 months.
“Sellers Market” conditions exist when the Absorption Rate is lower. (1-4 months)
“Buyers Market” conditions exist when the Absorption Rate is higher. (7+ months)
—Thanks to Rich Schiffer from Active Rain for the above information.

The current absorption rate for the Claremont Unified School District area as of today:

124 “listings” homes, townhomes, condos for sale (information taken from the IMRMLS) 10 homes, townhomes, and condos have sold/closed escrow in the past month 12/21/07 - 01/21/08

What this means is there is 53.91 weeks or 12.4 months of inventory. At this rate, it will take a little over a year to sell the 124 homes we currently have.

All of this might make the CUSD Board of Education rethink its projections for the district's growth, or shrinkage, as the case may be. With four new condo projects (two on Base Line Rd., the one at the old Courier building on College Ave., and Harry Wu's Griswold - Old School House condo project) all on hold, the lack of turnover in housing could also signal flat or shrinking student enrollment figures for the district, whose demographics indicate a graying population.

A new U.S. Census will be coming out in a few years, and we suspect the growth will be slower than Claremont city and school district officials have told us it would be, just as was the case with the 2000 Census. Even if total population rises, if the average household size falls from the 2.56 it was in 2000, that might be further evidence that there are fewer children in town.

All of which should give us pause about how both the Claremont city government and the CUSD Board look to allocate their resources in coming years.