well, maybe I should wait....
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Home sales hit 5-year low
BUT BAY AREA MEDIAN PRICES RISE IN JANUARY
By Sue McAllister
Mercury News
Bay Area home sales plunged last month to the lowest level in five years, another signal that 2006 won't bring a repeat of last year's sizzling real estate market.
In January, 6,004 properties changed hands in the nine-county region, 20 percent fewer than the same month in 2005. Though sales slowed, median prices moved higher compared with a year earlier, according to a report Thursday from DataQuick Information Systems. In Santa Clara County, the median price hit $705,000, up from $700,000 in December, and $615,000 in January 2005.
These numbers set a different tone than that of last year, when competitive buyers and easy money from mortgage lenders carried Bay Area prices nearly 20 percent higher. But experts warned it's too early to draw firm conclusions from the data, since winter is normally a chilly season for home sales. Most homes sold in January likely found buyers in November and December.
``To me, this is a normalization and rebalancing of the market, and it's by no means ominous,'' said John Karevoll of DataQuick, which gathered the information from public records. It won't be apparent until March whether the low sales volume is a temporary lull or part of a significant downturn, he said.
Real estate experts couldn't pinpoint a cause of January's slowdown. Some blamed flagging consumer confidence after Gulf Coast hurricanes and rising gas prices. Others guessed super-low interest rates in the past few years led homeowners to purchase earlier than they would have otherwise, leaving fewer buyers for 2006.
Another explanation: Buyers couldn't bear the rising prices any longer.
``The prices have continued to increase so much that the listed properties have priced themselves out of the market for first-time home buyers,'' said Sherry Chris, chief operating officer for Prudential Realty in California, Nevada and Texas.
In one indication, she said, there are currently more homes on the market in San Francisco than at any time in the past five years. It's normal for the inventory of for-sale homes to rise at this time of year, but ``the difference now is they're staying on the market longer.''
The number of houses for sale in Santa Clara County has increased steadily since the beginning of the year, with about 1,820 houses on the market last week. That's up from last February, when only about 1,120 were available -- an unusually small number.
What message should buyers glean from the low number of recent sales and higher inventory?
``Buyers should have no pressure whatsoever from fear of increasing prices,'' said Richard Calhoun of Creekside Realty in San Jose. Calhoun, who crunches real estate data from the multiple listing service each day, said he predicts that sometime this spring the county's median price will dip below last year's level. When that happens, he said, some buyers will react to the inevitable media coverage by sitting on the sidelines, which will hold down prices.
Local real estate agents say the market is nowhere near as competitive as it was last year at this time.
``We're not getting 200 people like we used to'' at weekend open houses, said Dave Clark, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Sunnyvale. Still, 75 people is not unheard of, he said. ``There's a lot of people looking out there.''
Howard Bloom, an agent with Intero Real Estate who works primarily in Mountain View, said home sellers can no longer expect multiple purchase offers and overbidding. He tells sellers, `` `Don't put your house on the market at a price you're not willing to accept,' '' he said.
The DataQuick report showed that in January, the median price of resale houses in the whole Bay Area was $628,000, up 12.9 percent from a year earlier.
The median price marks a midpoint, meaning half the homes sold for less and half sold for more.
In San Mateo County, the median resale price last month was $780,000, unchanged from December, but up 11.7 percent from January 2005. Alameda County posted a median price of $589,500, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier. In Santa Cruz County, the median price rose 4.5 percent from last year, to $730,250.
Compared with January 2005, resale condo prices were up in all counties except San Francisco, where the median price fell 3.4 percent. The median condo price for the Bay Area last month was $475,000; in Santa Clara County it was $490,750.
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