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Want More For The Money? Real Estate Agent Says Look To The Inland Empire

CORONA (CBSLA) — If you've noticed fewer for sale signs in your neighborhood, you're not alone.

IE Home Sales Booming
Throughout the Southland, the real estate market is hot. CBSLA)

"We're having this frenzy going on right now," Dave Clark, a real estate agent, says.

Clark, who sells home with Keller Williams Corona, says homes are flying off the market so fast they only stay up for a few days. Right now, he has 75 homes on the market. But, he says, he normally has four times as many.

"By the time they get out here to see a home, it's in escrow," he says. "If somebody calls me on a Wednesday of Thursday and want to see it Saturday, it's gone."

Clark says the pandemic has created a lot of fear, which is playing into the lack of inventory and driving up sales even more.

"A lot of the people that are listing and selling are buying something else right away," he says.

In Riverside County, home sales have hit an 11-year high — up 10% since this time last year — and home prices are up 17%.

"I told my wife one house only," Alberto Zabala, a homeowner, says. "That's it. That's all you get."

Zabala and his family left the Los Angeles area for their forever home in Eastvale and were able to get a lot more for their money.

"I got too much square footage," Zabala says with a laugh.

The family's home is 2,600 square feet. Clark's Corona listings of that size run about $600,000 to $650,000 and sometimes even include a pool.

"For the same homes that you would be paying, $700,000, $800,000 and $850,000 and $900,000 just across the border," Clark says.

Plus, Zabala says you get a new sense of community.

"Get away from all of the traffic," he says. "None of the riff-raff, you know?"

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