County home prices up, but not sales

Home prices in San Joaquin County continue to climb with median prices pushing toward a quarter of a million dollars last month.
The California Association of Realtors said last week that the median priced single-family home sold for $245,900 in March, up 28.6 percent in the last 12 months and up nearly 5 percent from February's median price.
However, year-over home sales dropped 24 percent, echoing slipping sales across the state.
“While the demand for housing was up from February, the market is taking a hit from lower housing affordability compared to a year ago, which led to a decline in home sales from last year,” said Kevin Brown, the association's president.
“Moreover, concerns over tighter lending standards and increased borrowing costs are also contributing factors to the sluggish market as they both negatively impact the bottom line of home buyers who obtain financing through mortgages.”
Earlier this month, Realty-Trac Inc. reported that San Joaquin County had a 40 percent drop in new foreclosure filings in March compared to a year earlier. The decline continues the county's retreat from its one-time status as the nation's No. 1 foreclosure market. San Joaquin County last month ranked 35th. The No. 1 label now belongs to Port Lucie, Fla., where one of every 99 housing units received a foreclosure notice last month. In San Joaquin County one of every 258 housing units received a notice in March.
Sales figures released by CAR closely match data released by Irvine-based DataQuick that said the median priced home in the county sold for $225,750, a price about 30.1 percent higher than in March 2010.
According to DataQuick, home sales in March were the lowest for a March since 2008, when 24,565 homes sold statewide – a record low for the month. California’s high for March sales was 68,848 in 2005. That would have been just before the real estate crash. Last month's sales were 23.9 percent below the average of 43,251 sales for all months of March since 1988, when DataQuick's statistics begin. California sales haven’t been above average for any particular month in more than eight years.
The supply of homes for sale is slowing increasing in San Joaquin County, which also parallels what's happening statewide. CAR said there was a 3.4 months supply available for sale last month. That's up from the 2.2 months supply in March 2013. A normal supply is in the six month range.
CAR's complete report on March sales is available at www.car.org/newsstand/newsreleases/2014releases/march2014sales
DataQuick home sales figures can be found at www.dqnews.com/Charts/Monthly-Charts/CA-City-Charts/ZIPCAR.aspx