Bay Area Housing Market Sees Slow Start For 2011

Bay City News - Bay Area home sales have dropped since December, but sales are still higher in early 2011 than they were during the same period in 2010, a real estate information service said.

It's normal for sales to be slow this time of year, meaning January and February are not necessarily predictive of upcoming trends, according to a report by real estate monitoring service DataQuick.

Overall home sales rose slightly in early 2011 compared with the same time last year, with 4,966 sold in the Bay Area, DataQuick said.

Within the Bay Area, Napa County had the highest increase, rising 35.6 percent from last year.

Home sales in Alameda County were up by 3.5 percent in January in comparison to the same period last year. According to the DataQuick report, median home prices in Alameda County were down from $341,000 in January 2010 to $308,181 in January 2011.  

DataQuick shows the median home prices in Newark dropped to $292,500 in December 2010 from $350,000 during the same period the year before.

Solano County saw the biggest decrease with a drop of 3 percent from last year, according to DataQuick. New-home sales dropped to their lowest in more than 20 years with 253 sales, DataQuick officials said.

"Builders just can't build homes that can compete in price with the bargains out there, especially foreclosure resales," DataQuick president John Walsh said in a statement.

The median price for new and resale houses and condos in the Bay Area dropped to $338,000 in January 2011, compared to $350,000 in January 2010, DataQuick reported.

Sales of higher-cost homes appear to still be suffering from the credit crisis, which made adjustable-rate mortgages and "jumbo" loans more difficult to obtain, the report said.

Jumbo loans, which accounted for nearly 60 percent of the Bay Area purchase loan market before the credit crunch more than three years ago, accounted for only 27.1 percent of January's purchasing lending, the report said.

Government-insured Federal Housing Administration loans made up 25 percent of all home purchase mortgages in January.

Monthly mortgage payments are down from last month and last year, according to DataQuick. The typical mortgage for January was $1,412, compared to $1,558 in December and $1,525 in January 2010.

Foreclosure activity remains high but is below peak levels reached over the last two years, the report said.