Bay Area home sales remain at five-year low

By Ari Burack, Bay City News Service

November 16, 2006

Home sales in the Bay Area were much slower this October than at the same time last year, part of a trend that has buyers and sellers waiting to see how the housing market turns, a national real estate information service reported.

Figures drawn from October home sales in the nine-county region revealed that the median value of a home sold in the Bay Area remained at $614,000, while the number of homes purchased shrank by more than 24 percent over last October, amounting to a continued "five-year low'' in home sales in the Bay Area, according to the study by DataQuick Information Systems.

According to DataQuick president Marshall Prentice, "The market is in the midst of its post-frenzy rebalancing phase.''

"The sky is probably not falling, as some have predicted,'' Prentice asserted.

The number of homes sold this October as compared with last October decreased in all Bay Area counties, though the largest decrease took place in Solano County at 35.4 percent lower than in October 2005, followed by Sonoma, Marin and Alameda counties.

The smallest decreases in homes sold were in San Mateo and San Francisco counties, where the number dropped around 13 percent.

Though the median home sale price in October remained the same throughout the Bay Area as in October of last year, median sale prices did change from county to county.

Sale prices decreased the most in Napa County, down from $608,000 in October 2005 to $555,000 this October. Prices increased the most in Marin and Santa Clara counties, from $817,000 to $844,000 in Marin County and from $639,000 to $658,000 in Santa Clara County.

The highest sale prices in October were reported in Marin County, where the median sale price of a home was $844,000, followed by San Francisco County, where the median was $771,000.

Typical mortgage payments for Bay Area buyers were slightly lower in October than in September, though they remained slightly higher than at the same time last year, according to the study. Taking inflation into account, mortgage payments are 14 percent higher than they were at the peak of the previous cycle, 14 years ago, the study reported.

The study also reported that foreclosure activity has been rising, though it is "still below average.''

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