We examined 55 major cities spread over 16 counties in Northern California in order to comprehensively analyze the housing market. We compared key statistics from December 2009 with December 2008 in order to determine how the Real Estate market fared over the course of a year.
Summary of Key Points |
- Northern California housing market deteriorated in the period examined
- Total Units Sold in North Ca (55 cities analyzed) in Dec 08 were 7328 and 6081 in Dec 09 (a drop of 17.02%)
- Big Picture: SF – Peninsula market performed the best with East Bay and North Bay markets on the rise. Monterey, Merced and Modesto markets were worst out of the lot
Median Sales Price
As you can see median sales price took a hit in a majority of markets we examined, 7 out of 10 to be specific. Modesto and Merced saw the largest declines going down from $180,603 and $133,000 in Dec 08 to $151,894 and $113,970 in Dec 09 (-15.90%, -14.31%) respectively. North Bay, SF – Peninsula, and Stockton were in the minority seeing as they were the only 3 markets to have experienced a gain. Out of the 3 North Bay saw the largest gain with a jump in median sales price of about $30,000 or 7.26%.
Median Days on Market
This is one category where everyone except for the Sacramento market benefitted. Sacramento was the only market that saw an increase in the median days on market category. A house spent about 48 days on the market in Sacramento in Dec 08 and 56 days in Dec 09, a jump of 17.15%. Save for Sacramento, everyone else saw a reduction in the amount of days houses spent on the market with the biggest winners being Monterey, SF – Peninsula, and Santa Cruz. Median days on market for Monterey went from 88 days to 56 days (-36.36%), Peninsula saw a decline from 88 days to 57 days (-34.50%), and Santa Cruz from 59 days to 42 days (-28.81%). A majority of markets experienced a drop in median sales price and that is a major reason why Northern California homes are spending fewer days on the market. Dropping home values is resulting in faster sales.
Total Number of Units Sold
Number of units sold took a major hit as well. Every market except for Santa Cruz saw a decline in the number of units sold and even in Santa Cruz the increase was very insignificant (25 units in Dec 08 to 29 in Dec 09). The major losers in this category were Monterey going from 202 units sold in Dec 08 to 88 in Dec 09 (-56.44%), Merced units sold dropping from 79 to 42 (-46.84%) and Stockton, 1004 to 697 (-30.58%).
No of Months Inventory
Again the numbers are in line with what is actually being faced by prospective buyers.Multiple offers ,shortage of inventory are common in this market.The maximum inventory was 4.52 months in Santa Cruz market.The lowest inventory was in Sacramento at 1.16 months.These inventory numbers are a lot lower than last year and clearly reflect the tightness in the market.
% Bank REOs Sold
In certain markets , subject to availability of data , we looked at the % of Bank REOs sold in December 2009 as compared to December 2008.The numbers were in line with what is actually happening in the field.Bank REO sales have slowed down and have been replaced by short sales to an extent.But it seems that the void could not be fully replaced and thus reflects in the reduction of units sold.Every market analysed saw a reduction in the percentage of Bank REOs sold.
As a whole a comparison of December 2009 data with December 2008 data shows the following
- No of Median Days dropped across markets
- No of Months inventory dropped across markets
- There was a small decrease in median prices
- The % of Bank REOs dropped across markets.
The market can be summarised as a market with low inventory , dropping prices and a lot of Buyers chasing limited inventory.The drop in prices are not as steep as same time last year compared with December 2007.
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