Santa Cruz Real Estate Sales Data - April 2008
May 10, 2008
Well, the numbers are in, and we’re looking better. For those of you who are really interested in knowing what’s going on with real estate sales in Santa Cruz county, I want to remind you that I have a great page on my web site that gives you all kinds of ways to look at Santa Cruz Real Estate Sales Data. Also, I offer a monthly Santa Cruz Real Estate newsletter which offers an analysis of what the numbers mean, and this month’s edition just hit the inboxes of subscribers.
OK, maybe the numbers aren’t grrrrrrrreat! like our friend Tony the Tiger would say. But they’re certainly better than what we’ve seen lately. What’s the scoop? For Santa Cruz county as a whole, sales and prices of single-family homes rebounded nicely in April compared to March. County-wide, there were 103 sales in April ‘08, compared to just 70 in March ‘08. Also, the median price of those homes rose 6.1% from March.
Comparing one month to the month before it isn’t a terribly useful exercise, however. After all, we are approaching the peak selling season, so it’s no surprise that sales numbers are up. However, it’s a very good thing that sales numbers aren’t down - that would be most unwelcome news.
It is, perhaps, more interesting to compare April ‘08 to April ‘07 - what do we see there? There, we see that the median price (again, county-wide) of single-family residences is down 11.8%, and in April last year, 132 homes were sold - so about 25% fewer homes were sold this April. The numbers are considerably worse for condos, but so few condos were sold (just 19 county wide) that it’s difficult to really gauge what’s going on in that market price-wise.
One thing I’d like to point out here is what’s happening in Watsonville. There is an enormous amount of pending home sales in Watsonville - homes that are under contract, but the sales have yet to close. Many/most of these homes are foreclosure properties - there are some staggering bargains to be had. It will be interesting to see what happens to the sales numbers and median prices when these sales close.
I really encourage you to subscribe to my newsletter. I’ve got an interesting article in there this month about the problem with the foreclosure numbers - things are perhaps not so bad as they seem. Of course, if you are one of the many unfortunate homeowners contributing to the swelling statistics of foreclosure numbers, if things get really bad, you can always just walk away.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:30am
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Santa Cruz Real Estate Investment Club
February 19, 2008
Today I had the honor and privilege of making a presentation at the Santa Cruz Real Estate and Investment Club. They hold weekly meetings, every Tuesday at 6:30 PM at the 41st Avenue office of Santa Cruz Title Company. They also have a Santa Cruz Real Estate Investment Yahoo Group on-line.
I cobbled together a PowerPoint presentation, about 20 slides or so, about some market statistics and the opportunities that are there for investors in Watsonville who want to buy short sale or REO real estate. I had 30 minutes to talk, it actually ended up being closer to an hour because there were a lot of questions from the people who were there.
It’s kind of amazing how much opportunity there is for investors down in Watsonville, but there’s so few people right here in Santa Cruz who know what’s going on down there. I think it kind of speaks volumes about the schism in our beautiful little county here.
Anyway, I had fun doing the presentation, and I’m going to try to do some more such presentations at other investment clubs in the area. I’ll keep you posted.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 10:57pm
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Median Santa Cruz home price drops to $599,000
February 16, 2008
Finally, the real state of the Santa Cruz county housing market is starting to show up in median home prices:
[From Santa Cruz Sentinel - Median home price drops to $599,000]
By JONDI GUMZ The median price for a single-family home in Santa Cruz County dropped to $599,000 in January, down 18 percent since December and a level not seen since 2004. … Only 63 sales closed escrow, a new low, the previous was 107 in 2006. A third of the January 2008 sales were for homes less than $500,000, more than double from previous months, and the subset of sales over $1 million, which had been as high as 25 percent, was 14 percent, the lowest in months.
For too long, the median home price has defied the reality out there on the streets, giving many buyers and especially sellers a false sense of what’s happening. Sometimes, we would see the median price inch up month over month, but for a long time it held steady at over $700,000.
But now, there’s been a significant drop in the median price, down to $599,000. Of course, it is worth noting that this is the figure for the county as a whole, and that some areas continue to hold up their values very well. That would be the usual suspects - Santa Cruz, Capitola, and pretty much anything near the beach.
And don’t go blaming Watsonville on being a drag on prices - hardly anything is selling down in Watsonville, although it had a much better month in January than it did in December, which was pretty much a train-wreck for sales. No, these lower-prices are county-wide, and even in Santa Cruz and Capitola, there are more bargains to be had than in recent years past.
The article is a good read, and it mentions that inventory is relatively low in many parts of the county, that many people who might want to sell are keeping their homes off the market, because now is not a good time to sell. That’s true, but what’s left unsaid is, what would happen if these same people found themselves in a situation where they had to sell?
Might we start seeing rising foreclosures in the rest of the county? Up until now, Watsonville (and to a lesser extent, Boulder Creek and the rest of the San Lorenzo Valley) has grabbed the lion’s share of the foreclosure activity. That’s because people tried to sell their houses, and found there were few buyers for them at the prices they were asking…and when you can’t make your house payment, and nobody wants to buy your house…you know the rest of the story.
Is this what lies in store for more of Santa Cruz county? I sure hope not, because what’s going on in Watsonville is pretty heartbreaking.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 9:46am
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