Cautious as a cat... that's how we're watching our market here in California. This article from Wall Street Journal reports a mixed bag, and I choose to emphasize the positive. It's been a long time coming. Keep the faith! Any sign of recovery can be taken as a sign that the market is bottoming.
SF BAY AREA UP 9.2%, San Diego UP 5.2%, Santa Cruz County UP 6.3%, Santa Barbara UP 31.3%. Some regions, including Sacramento, showed a slight decrease. In Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County, the median price rose 3.6% after a year-over-year fall of 38.2%
Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2009 By JIM CARLTON
SAN FRANCISCO -- California's median price for existing homes rose 1.4% in April from March, marking the second consecutive monthly increase in housing prices and prompting some industry officials to declare that the state's long swoon in housing values could be at or near the bottom.
California's housing market is being closely watched as a barometer of the economy -- it is the nation's largest. Prices soared during the boom, but the collapse of housing prices has pummeled homeowners and helped send foreclosures skyrocketing. Any sign of recovery would be taken as a sign that the market is bottoming.
It was the first back-to-back increase in the state's housing prices in two years, following an increase in the median price of homes in March from February. The median price of $256,700 for single-family homes in April is up from a median price of $253,040 in March, according to estimates by the California Association of Realtors.
The April prices were still off 36.5% from the same month a year ago, but the sales of 540,360 homes on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis represented a 49.2% rise over the same time, the Realtors group reported Thursday.
April also marked the eighth consecutive month of single-family-home sales above 500,000 units. The inventory of unsold homes continued to shrink, to 4.6 months' supply from 9.8 months a year ago. "It appears that the median price is now at or near the bottom," said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the Realtors' association, who has previously made more subdued comments.
But no one is pronouncing any imminent turnaround in either the national or California markets. Housing continues to be weighed down by factors including high unemployment, high foreclosures and continued economic uncertainty. While California's home market appears near the bottom of a long slide, prices could continue to fluctuate for the rest of the year, some analysts say.
"At best, some markets have at least temporarily leveled off in price," said Andrew LePage, analyst at MDA Dataquick Information Services, a market-research firm in La Jolla, Calif. "I don't see any markets that have clearly bottomed out."
In general, the best-performing markets across the state in terms of sales volume were in lower-priced, inland areas that had seen some of the steepest declines in prices. Sales in the high-desert region outside Los Angeles, for example, more than doubled in April from the same month a year ago, after price declines of 49.5% over the same time. Median prices, even month to month, continued to fall there amid a glut of foreclosures.
But in several more densely populated areas, the median price was stronger. Los Angeles County's median rose 1.9% in April from March, after falling 31% over the past year. In Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County, the median price rose 3.6% after a year-over-year fall of 38.2%, the Realtor's group said. Boosting sales are some of the best affordability rates in almost a decade, say economists.
Realtors' officials said sales remain weaker for more-expensive homes. Inventories of unsold homes in the under-$500,000 segment, for example, shrank to nearly three months' supply in April from about 10 months a year ago. But the inventory of homes priced at more than $1 million rose to about 17 months from 10 months a year earlier.
The problem for the higher end of the market is that lending has tightened greatly for the jumbo mortgages that are often needed to buy a home costing more than $500,000, say economists. Some lenders now require down payments of as much as 30% to 40%. As a result, sales have remained anemic in pricey markets like San Francisco.
Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com
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