We’ve passed through the $400,000 threshold for the second time. The first time was better for property owners (like myself) and probably the economy in general. I’m seeing bulk bank owned packages on the market at 18 cents on the dollar. You can pick up second TD’s for less than two cents for every dollar of the unpaid balance. $10,000,000 in loans for under $200,000. Of course, those seconds are mostly worthless now.
Data quick shows the median at $397,000 for December sales but the median for homes sold on the MLS is $380,000. MLS figures do not include new home sales which tend to sell for higher amounts. In fact there were 207 new home sales with a median price of $498,000.
Pending sales seem to have slowed a bit with only 3734 homes listed as pending sales as of 1/15/09. The median list price of those pending sales is $365,000 so it seems a lock that we’ll have at least another 10% decline.
The low end of the market is still falling fastest. Every day I see more single family properties listed for under $300,000. We’re back to 2003.
Brad Davidson
We Help-U-Buy Realty
Brad, do you see coastal San Diego/OC areas further sliding w/ many Short Sales and REOS coming up?
I think everywhere will continue to be affected. So many homeowners are upside down that short sales and REOs will continue throughout 2009.
The coastal areas are clearly not immune as the Capistrano Beach zip code has had some of the largest price drops in Orange County in the past year.
As the market continues to go down, we have seen a large portion of our sign business change to “We buy houses” signs and “Bank Owned” signs. It seems that California, Nevada and Florida are where most of the business is coming from. SuperCheapSigns.com
Brad, Do you have any sight on how the January 2009 median is going to land? Are we starting to see the bottom yet or does the weak economy put more pressure on housing prices?? I usually put the median household income to housing costs by city and still see a big variance in the two components which makes me wonder if we are getting close to the prices bottoming out…
The early numbers for January look about identical to December. Sales slow at 2,281 properties closed with a median of $380,000. Some more will be listed as closed in the next week but the numbers shouldn’t change much.
I won’t be calling a bottom for a while. We need several months of stability for that. Still a lot of foreclosures to hit the market.
Don’t hope for 2000 prices. Other parts of your life will suck if we drop that far.
California Kid, we are no where near the bottom. The bottom will be in sight when we reach 2000 prices. There is no reason why it may not overshoot these values on the way down. Remember the mid 90s? Most people don’t (or don’t want to).
LOL, I feel the same given all of the current economic issues unfolding. What’s your projection for the OC Median price for this summer?? Will their be a major meltdown once the spring selling season shows no positive results or do we continue down this long drawn out process before prices get back to proper levels…?