Wow! Sky high housing price again for Southern California. Yet, it's still 18% below the record high during the spring and summer of 2007. Prices are still increasing but more stable as it's climbing at a much more reasonable slow pace which helps to sustain prices. Due to continued low inventory and the decline in affordability sales have slowed. Market indicators (lower foreclosure rates, fewer short sales and less distressed sales) are showing signs of returning to a normal healthy housing market.
Southern California home prices hit 77-month high, sales fall again
Posted:Southern California’s housing prices hit their highest level in 77 months during June, but signs emerged that appreciation is moderating, a market tracker said Tuesday.
Last month, the median price of new and previously owned houses and condos in the six-county region rose 8 percent to $415,000 — up 1 percent from $410,000 in May, which was the 76-month high, said La Jolla-based DataQuick.
It was the median’s first year-over-year single-digit percentage gain in 22 months, the company said. The median, which has inched up for 27 consecutive months, has generally been in the same range since last May. Its biggest gain since the end of the Great Recession was 28 percent in June 2013.
The median price is now 18 percent below the record high of $505,000, in place through the spring and summer of 2007.
Prices are expected to increase but not outrun the market, which is what led to the last collapse.
“Pent-up demand, job growth and still-low mortgage rates continue to put pressure on home prices,” said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage. “But they’re climbing at a much slower pace than a year ago. In many markets, price appreciation has slipped into the more sustainable single-digit range, compared with gains exceeding 20 percent this time last year.”
Inventory, while still historically low, is higher this year, and the decline in affordability serves as “gravity” for price gains to narrow, LePage said, adding that there may be increases in the 10 percent range as the summer plays out.
Sales in June remained in a funk.
Last month, 20,654 new and previously owned houses and condos sold, down 4 percent from a year earlier.
Sales have fallen on a year-over-year basis for nine consecutive months, DataQuick said, as perspective buyers continued to struggle with inventory and declining affordability. They rose 6 percent from May.
In Los Angeles County, the median home price rose 6 percent, to $450,000 from $425,000 a year earlier. Sales fell 7.5 percent, to 6,792 properties.
In San Bernardino County, the median jumped 18 percent, to $240,000, and sales were basically flat.
The role distressed properties played in the market continued to diminish.
Last month, foreclosure resales — homes foreclosed in the prior 12 months — accounted for a 5 percent share of the region’s market, down from 9 percent a year earlier.
Short sales — transactions where the sale price fell short of what was owed on the property — accounted for a 6 percent share, down from 15.5 percent a year earlier.
And all of this is a good sign, LePage said. “Many of the market indicators we track continue to ease toward normalcy.”
Still, conditions are not quite living up to hopes.
“It’s certainly not performing as expected,” said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist at the Kyser Center for Economic Research in Los Angeles, of 2014’s first quarter. “That may have prompted people to temper (their buying) expectations.”
Source: http://www.dailynews.com/business/20140715/southern-california-home-prices-hit-77-month-high-sales-fall-again
No comments:
Post a Comment