Bay Area home sales remain at two-decade low

April 17, 2008

La Jolla, CA.----For the seventh month in a row, Bay Area home sales were at their lowest level in more than two decades as potential buyers and sellers continued to wait out market turbulence, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 4,898 new and resale houses and condos sold in the nine- county Bay Area in March. That was up 22.8 percent from 3,989 in February, and down 41.1 percent from 8,317 for March 2007, DataQuick Information Systems reported.

Last month was the slowest March in DataQuick's statistics, which go back to 1988. Record monthly lows have been logged in since September. The sales increase between February and March this year was the lowest on record. Normally sales increase by 40 percent.

"Other parts of the state have been hit harder by the downturn in the housing market than the Bay Area. Most of the distress is in areas that absorbed spillover activity during the 2004 and 2005 frenzy. For the most part that's the Central Valley and inland Southern California. It still appears that a lot of Bay Area activity is just on hold, waiting for the mortgage markets to open back up," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president.

The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $536,000 last month, down 2.2 percent from $548,000 in February, and down 16.1 percent from $639,000 in March last year. Last month's median was 19.4 percent lower than the peak median of $665,000 reached last June and July.

Last month's median price would have been closer to $597,000 if the availability of jumbo home loans had remained stable. A year ago jumbo loans, mortgages above $417,000, accounted for 62.2 percent of all Bay Area home loans. Last month they were 29.8 percent.

DataQuick, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, monitors real estate activity nationwide and provides information to consumers, educational institutions, public agencies, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. Due to late data availability, the March statistics for Alameda County were extrapolated from the first three weeks of the month.

The typical monthly mortgage payment that Bay Area buyers committed themselves to paying was $2,405 last month, down from $2,446 the previous month, and down from $2,944 a year ago. Adjusted for inflation, current payments are 5.1 percent below typical payments in the spring of 1989, the peak of the prior real estate cycle. They are 28.6 percent below the current cycle's peak in June last year.

Indicators of market distress continue to move in different directions. Foreclosure activity is at record levels, financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is at a six-year low. Down payment sizes and flipping rates are stable, non-owner occupied buying activity is increasing, DataQuick reported.

	Sales Volume			Median Price
All homes	Mar-07	Mar-08	%Chng	Mar-07	Mar-08	%Chng
Alameda	1,840	971	-47.2%	$598,000	$487,500	-18.50%
Contra Costa	1,443	973	-32.6%	$575,000	$420,500	-26.90%
Marin	289	148	-48.8%	$825,000	$788,500	-4.4%
Napa	124	72	-41.9%	$590,000	$469,000	-20.50%
Santa Clara	2,052	1,105	-46.2%	$682,500	$620,000	-9.2%
San Francisco	640	508	-20.6%	$753,000	$755,000	0.3%
San Mateo	796	438	-45.0%	$755,000	$723,000	-4.2%
Solano	527	356	-32.4%	$445,000	$330,000	-25.80%
Sonoma	606	327	-46.0%	$520,000	$409,500	-21.30%
Bay Area	8,317	4,898	-41.1%	$639,000	$536,000	-16.10%