More Bay Area homes changed hands last month than in March 2008, marking the seventh consecutive month that home sales have outstripped their prior-year levels — a sign that the region's housing market may be bottoming out in some sectors,according to MDA DataQuick, a real estate information firm.
Our local inventory is down, and sales are up...unusual for early Spring, and in
Santa Clara County, a total of 1,288 resale and new houses and condos sold in March, nearly 17 percent more sales than in March 2008. The median price of the resale houses was still quite low, reflecting more the sluggishness of high-end sales than a decrease in value...Selling prices were actually up somewhat from February.
With the volatility of the stock market and rising job losses in the tech sector, sales of the valley's more expensive homes slowed abruptly beginning last fall.
With that part of the market stalled, a greater portion of the area's home purchases are now being made by budget-minded first-time buyers and investors seeking deals on homes that have previously been foreclosed upon.
More than 44 percent of Santa Clara County sales in March were of homes that had been foreclosed upon in the previous 12 months, DataQuick said.
Prices may have bottomed in the foreclosure-resale part of the market, where buyer demand is fierce. But it's hard to gauge how much prices have changed in the high end, because those homes are not selling as well yet.
1 comment:
How do you define "high end sales" i.e what price range do you include here? >2M?
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