Bay Area Home Sales Remain Stuck in Five-Year Low
Bay Area home sales held steady at a five-year low in October as buyers and sellers bided their time while prices remained flat.
A total of 7,979 houses and condos were sold in the nine-county region last month. While this figure represented a 0.9 percent boost from from the month before, it was down 24.1 percent (from 10,508) for October last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
Last month’s sales count was the lowest for any October since 2001 when 7,867 homes were sold. There seems to be a low demand for any sort of home loans in the area - fixed or adjustable rate - as prices are still out of reach for many.
“The market is in the midst of its post-frenzy rebalancing phase. The sky is probably not falling, as some have predicted. But there will be those who bought near or at the peak, and who could find themselves in financial trouble if they need to sell and move sooner than they had planned,” said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president.
The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $614,000 last month, up 0.5 percent from September’s and unchanged from October last year. The median hovered around $630,000 last spring and early summer, spiking to $644,000 in June before coming down.
Breaking down the California housing market: In Santa Clara County, there were 1,971 homes sold, compared to 2,557 in October 2005 and 1,867 in September. The median price was $658,000, compared to $639,000 a year ago and $657,000 last month.
In San Mateo County, there were 653 homes sold, compared to 754 a year ago and 639 in September. The median price was $745,000 compared to $759,000 in the year-ago period and $745,000 a month earlier.
Meanwhile, the typical monthly mortgage payment for Bay Area buyers was $2,901 last month. That was down from $2,924 in September, and up from $2,876 for October a year ago.
It peaked in June at $3,183. Adjusted for inflation, mortgage loan payments are 14 percent higher than they were at the peak of the prior cycle fourteen years ago.