A headline like that averages an entire region into one number, and in coastal Orange County that average hides a market split hard by price point. Under roughly two million dollars, where most transactions actually happen, the market stays fairly competitive. Correctly priced homes there still draw multiple offers, and we see it firsthand on listings we sell in places like Huntington Beach. A wide-open buyer's market does not behave that way. The ultra-luxury tier, roughly fifteen to twenty million and up, can look completely different, sometimes near silent. The buyer pool up there is tiny, and buyers at that level are not purchasing shelter, so their demand does not follow the affordability math that drives the rest of the market. Blend that quiet top end with the busy middle and the region averages out to something softer than what a typical buyer will actually experience. So treat a broad "strongest in years" claim as a prompt to check your own slice: the count of comparable active listings, days on market, and how correctly homes are priced in your price band and city. Have an agent who works that exact area pull the local data before you decide whether you are walking into competition or into leverage.