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Bay Area home sales fall in October, median price down except in Santa Clara and Solano counties

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A real estate information service reports Bay Area homes sales fell sharply in October and the region's median sale price for all homes fell on a year-over-year basis for the first time in 13 months. Santa Clara and Solano were the only Bay Area counties to see a slight increase in median price.

A total of 6,122 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the nine-county Bay Area in October, down 3.3 percent from September and down 22.8 percent from October 2009, according to MDA DataQuick. Sales were the lowest for any October since 2007, when 5,486 homes sold. Sales in all nine counties were down, with Santa Clara County home sales falling 29.30 percent to 1,374, from 1,944 the same time last year.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined in the Bay Area was $383,000, down 3 percent from $395,000 in September and down 1.8 percent from $390,000 in October 2009. Before October, the region experienced a 12-month string of year-over-year increases in the median sale price, ranging from 1.8 percent to 31 percent. Only the counties of Santa Clara and Solano had a slight year-over-year gain of 0.5 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. The October median sale price for all homes in Santa Clara County was $502,500; it was $500,000 in October 2009.

Jeff Bell, president of the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®, is not surprised at the October sales drop in the region. "In Santa Clara County, we continue to see the median sales price stabilizing, which is good. Housing affordability has never been better, but the high unemployment rate, slow job growth and difficulty in obtaining credit, especially for high-cost homes, worry consumers and continue to be stumbling blocks to a complete housing recovery."

Sales of higher-cost homes remain soft because adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and jumbo loans are much more difficult to obtain. According to the DataQuick report, jumbo loans, mortgages above the old conforming limit of $417,000, accounted for 33.8 percent of October's purchase lending, up from 33.6 percent in September, 30.9 percent in October 2009. Before the August 2007 credit crunch, jumbos accounted for nearly 60 percent of the Bay Area purchase loan market.

It appears investors and cash buyers continue to have an upper hand in the market. Absentee buyers purchased 19.8 percent of all Bay Area homes sold, compared with 15.9 percent a year ago and a decade-long average of 13.2 percent. Buyers who appeared to have paid all cash accounted for 25.5 percent of sales in October, up from 22.6 percent a year ago and a decade-long average of 11.4 percent.


The Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS® (SILVAR) is a professional trade organization representing over 4,000 REALTORS® and Affiliate members engaged in the real estate business on the Peninsula and in the South Bay. SILVAR promotes the highest ethical standards of real estate practice, serves as an advocate for homeownership and homeowners, and represents the interests of property owners in Silicon Valley.

The term "REALTOR®" is a registered collective membership mark which identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and who subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

Variations of this article have appeared in local area newspapers.

For further information, please contact Rose Meily at SILVAR Public Affairs, email , or phone (408) 200-0109.

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