San Diego Daily Transcript News Story
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Friday, July 10, 2009
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Source Code: 20090710tdj
San Diego home resales, median prices rise for third straight month
By JEN LEBRON KUHNEY, The Daily Transcript Friday, July 10, 2009 Median prices for both single-family attached and detached homes sold in San Diego County were up for the third month in a row while the month's total sales were the third highest in a single month since January 2007. The North San Diego County Association of Realtors' HomeDex reported that the 969 attached and 1,812 detached home sales in June were 25.5 and 16.3 percent higher than their June 2008 totals, respectively. Month to month, the sales increased 9 percent from 1,696 in May. Year over year, 2009 has had about 14,650 total attached and detached sales while 2008 had 10,900. "It's as hot as it's ever been," Jason Hall, broker and owner of RE/MAX Associates in San Diego, said about the lower end of the housing market. He added one of the agents working for his brokerage put in an offer on a home in Clairemont, only to discover it was one of 117 offers. While most homes are not receiving as many offers as the home in Clairemont, real estate agents and brokers have said it is common to get a dozen or more offers within the first week of a low- to well-priced home on the multiple listing service. The high volume of offers on homes priced under $400,000 could be one factor in median prices ticking up about 4 percent from May for both attached and detached homes. The median price for a detached home sold climbed to $360,000 in June from $345,750 in May, despite being down 13.9 percent from June 2008. Similarly, attached homes had a median selling price of $213,000, compared to $205,000 last month. The prices could indicate a floor, according to San Diego State University professor of real estate Leonard Baron. "Between investors, who are getting the properties right now, and first-time buyers who haven't been able to get anything, as properties come on the market, they're going to be grabbed up very quickly," he said, "which tells me there's an equilibrium at least at the lower end." Even with a slew of foreclosures expected to come onto the market sometime later this year, Baron and Hall said there are enough interested buyers out there to absorb the homes with little effect on median prices. However, Hall said it is important for buyers to realize there are numerous housing "markets" in San Diego that are experiencing different levels of activity at different price points. "In most parts of the county in the price range that we would consider for more first-time buyers, under five (hundred thousand dollars) or 350, four (hundred thousand dollars) area, it's multiple offers on almost everything," he said. "In La Jolla, though, things have been pretty slow." Both Baron and Hall said they predict San Diego County potential homebuyers will absorb the expected wave of foreclosure inventory later this year, but a question mark hangs over the upper end of the market due to increasing unemployment and uncertainty in the stock market. On the lower end, many investors and first-time homebuyers are able to obtain financing. However, with credit restrictions and jumbo loans harder to come by, banks sometimes stonewall transactions on pricier homes that would not have been a problem a few years ago, Hall said. Hall, who works out of an office in La Jolla and deals with many coastal properties, said some of his biggest producing agents have had fewer million-dollar sales lately, and have been working with clients to buy and sell bank-owned homes valued as low as $125,000. "The agents' mentality has shifted," he said about the smaller commissions that come with smaller sales. "We were licensed to be advocates to the consumer, not licensed to make money."
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7/13/2009