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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California Median Price down 29% in March, down 20.9% in Santa Cruz
April 30, 2008
This news is a few days old, so maybe you heard about it. Somehow, I missed this one, I’m a few days behind in reading the real estate news. But check out this news from C.A.R., the California Association of Realtors:
[From the California Association of Realtors - median home price fell 29 percent in March ]
Home sales decreased 24.5 percent in March in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 29 percent, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported today.
It’s a pretty interesting article, with lots of numbers to pick apart. Some areas are actually seeing median price increases - they provide a separate link with March 2008 home prices for various California cities and counties. According to C.A.R., home prices are down in Santa Cruz county by 20.9% And I know what you’re thinking - blame Watsonville. My broker did, at our weekly office meeting. The C.A.R. data says otherwise - the only city it breaks out in Santa Cruz county is the City of Santa Cruz, where it reports that median home prices have dropped 17.9% since March 2007.
I prefer to look at this as a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. The bad news is that if you need or want to sell your house, C.A.R. has just provided ample proof (again) of what you might have maybe thought: now is not the time to sell your home. Also, you might want to make sure your home equity line is still available, because your lender may get wise to the fact that you probably have a lot less home equity than you thought you did.
The good news, of course, is that lower prices creates a lot of buying opportunity that simply hasn’t been around for years and years. Many people who have been shut out of the market or who have been sitting on the sidelines are now seeing that their day may come. The Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy put out a report in February 2008 about rising affordability of California homes. According to that report, we are still far away from being an “affordable” place to live, but that’s the price of Paradise.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:29am
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Foreclsure News - from Santa Cruz and Beyond
April 15, 2008
I drive my wife crazy with my singing - and not in a Marvin Gaye kind of way. One thing I like to sing to her to wake her from slumber is Good Morning - my rendition is especially horrible and all I really know is the chorus part. But hey, I still think it’s better than a nasty alarm buzzer. And it is also better than getting woken up by the morning news, especially in these dark days.
You may have heard this one on the drive in to work, or perhaps they were bantering about it on NBC’s Today Show or something:
[From Bloomberg.com: Worldwide]
U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders.
Yeah, good stuff. That’s what you want to hear as you write out your next mortgage payment check!
Of course, you know the famous saying - all real estate is local. What’s happening in Peoria isn’t really all that germane to what’s happening in bucolic Santa Cruz. So what is going on in Bucolic Santa Cruz? Read on:
[From Median home price drops to $650,000 - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
The switch pushed the median price of a single-family home down in March to $650,000 from $682,500 in February — but not as low as $599,000 in January, when 33 percent of homes sold for less than $500,000. The median is the mid-spending point of what sold during the month.
Only 75 homes sold in March, the fewest number of sales for a month in 11 years, an indication of buyer reluctance despite lower list prices. The previous low — 143 sales — was set last March.
That’s an interesting article, and it has more sales data from the aforementioned Gary Ganges, who I talked about briefly in my blog entry from yesterday. According to the article:
Ganges doesn’t specifically track REOs but he found 12 of the 28 homes sold in Watsonville in January, February and March were bank-owned.
Only 12 of 28? Hmm, that seems a little low to me. I do specifically track REOs, all the time, because that’s where the best bargains are to be had, and I’m always looking to find my clients the best deal possible. I just did a search, and I looked at all closed sales since the beginning of the year (up til now, mid April). I included Watsonville and the outlying areas (but not north Monterey county), and counted houses, condos, and multi-residential properties (actually, I don’t think any multi-res sold in that time period). My findings?
There were 35 sales of such properties since the beginning of the year. Of those, two were short sales, and twenty-two (22!) were bank-owned REO real estate. Actually, I’m surprised the number isn’t a bit higher. It should be noted that a few of the others that sold were in the city of Watsonville’s affordable housing program, and there was one Measure J property.
Sigh. Welp, I’m off to my office meeting. Keep up the good work everyone!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:54am
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Is it safe to buy a house in Santa Cruz yet?
March 26, 2008
I get questions like that all the time. Are we near the bottom? Have we hit bottom? How low will prices go? When will the market turn around? Good questions. Where to go for answers?
There’s just so much contradictory information, isn’t there? For example, our good, reliable, always-faithful friends at the California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) report:
C.A.R. reports sales decrease 28.5 percent, median home price falls 26.2 percent in February
LOS ANGELES (March 24) – Home sales decreased 28.5 percent in February in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 26.2 percent, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported today.
But then we have this little tidbit which I saw splashed on the front pages of various newspapers the other day:
U.S. Economy: Existing-Home Sales Rise, Prices Fall
March 24 (Bloomberg) — Sales of existing homes in the U.S. unexpectedly rose in February as prices fell by the most in four decades.
There are other data points we can look at - for example, check out this entry from the Countrywide Foreclosures Blog:
14,413 REO’s Offered For Sale on Countrywide Financial’s Website
Total REO Asking Price: $2,976,805,967
(As of March 24, 2008)
Sounds like a lot of REOs - but look at the chart - the inventory is going down.
If you’re ever in need of a good a laugh, I recommend stopping by the Calculated Risk blog. It’s always a riot. They’ve got a bit of input on the New Home Sales numbers as reported by the Census:
[From More on New Home Sales - Calculated Risk]
There are actually two pieces of good news in the report. First, inventory levels (even accounting for cancellations) are clearly falling….The second piece of good news is revisions. During periods of rapidly declining sales, the Census Bureau routinely overestimates sales in the initial report - and then revises down sales over the next few months. In this report, sales were revised up slightly for November (from 630K to 631K), December (605K to 611K) and January (588K to 601K). This is actually a positive sign that New Home sales might be nearing a bottom.
So, what, exactly, does it all mean? The honest answer is, nobody knows. I’ll tell you what I think, though. I think that, barring any major, protracted recession, we are at or near the bottom of the market. I think Watsonville and the south county area is at the bottom and may already be heading up a bit - North Monterey county, too. I think that in the rest of Santa Cruz county, prices may have a bit to fall yet, but not much.
In short, I do think it is now “safe” to buy real estate in Santa Cruz county. We may not be at the bottom of the market in every nook and cranny of our diverse area, but I believe we’re close. My feeling is that anyone who buys today will not lose their shirt (and hat, and coat, and…), as many people did who bought in 2005 and 2006. I think worse case, if you buy today, you might lose a sock. Maybe a shoe, too. However, barring any calamity in the economy, I think now is a great time to buy in Santa Cruz. Mark my words. Unless I’m proven wrong, of course, in which case, forget everything I just said. 
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 6:07pm
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My 15 Minutes of Fame
March 18, 2008
Who was it who said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame? I think I’ve just had mine.
[From Agent: Foreclosures mean opportunities - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
Frey, 37, works at Thunderbird Real Estate in Capitola. Last month, he invited a reporter to join him as he checked on two newly foreclosed properties in the Las Lomas area, just over the Monterey County line.
Yeah, that’s pretty cool alright. An article about me, in the Sentinel. Next stop, 60 Minutes.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 11:52pm
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