Home prices rose from May to June in all six Southern California counties, pushing the region’s median home price up for a second straight month, MDA DataQuick reported today.
| Area | Price | Vs. ‘08 | Sold | Vs. ‘08 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LA | $320,000 | -22.9% | 7,636 | 34.5% |
| Orange | $418,000 | -11.1% | 2,958 | 16.5% |
| Riverside | $185,000 | -32.7% | 4,694 | 24.9% |
| San Berdoo | $140,000 | -41.7% | 3,438 | 55.2% |
| San Diego | $314,250 | -15.1% | 3,692 | 20.0% |
| Ventura | $365,000 | -13.1% | 844 | 10.0% |
| SoCal | $265,000 | -26.4% | 23,262 | 29.0% |
But rather than signal a price recovery, the uptick actually means that market malaise is spreading – from the low-end of the price spectrum to more higher-priced homes. DataQuick said:
- The recession and problem mortgages are fueling more high-end distress, hence more high-end bargains, DataQuick said. That increased sales of homes at $500,000 and above to 20% of the market in June, up from 18% in May.
- With more homes selling at $500,000 and above — and with the influence of deeply discounted foreclosures in lower-cost areas waning — the median price increased to $265,000 in June.
- That’s up 6.4% from May, but still down 26.4% from a year ago.
- Even after increasing twice since April, the median home price stood 47.5% below the peak price of $505,000 last reached two summers ago.
- SoCal’s median in June was the highest it’s been since December.
- “The rising median should still be viewed mainly as a sign the market’s moving back toward a more normal distribution of sales across the home price spectrum,” DataQuick said.
- Sales, meanwhile, continued to climb. A total of 23,262 homes closed escrow last month, up 29% from the previous June.
- Sales have been climbing on an annual basis for the past 12 months as a buying frenzy of distressed, lower-priced starter homes took hold.
- Last month’s sales were the highest for a June since 2006, but still were 17.7% below the month’s average in figures dating back to 1988.
- By the way, O.C. foreclosures hit 5-month high!
More market news …
- O.C. home price at 8-month high
- 51 O.C. ZIPs enjoy June homebuying boost
- O.C. forecloses hit 5-month high
- Is median price giving bum signals?
- O.C. rents fall 4%, back to 2007 levels
- O.C. commercial property-tax values off $2 billion
- Cheap South County homes red hot
- Renters seek savings in bigger apartments
The high end is going to take a real beating in due time.
Orange County No. 7 this year on Forbes list of worst communities for high-paying jobs.
http://economy.freedomblogging.com/2009/07/15/oc-no-7-on-forbes-worst-list/
I hate to say “I told you so” but we are now witnessing the collapse of the high end market.
My heart goes out to those people who are going to lose their homes.
Can you get some video of high end evictions taking place?? That would really be funny wouldn’t it?
You sure hope it does. All hopes and dreams so you can get the home you feel you deserve.
OC is outperforming every other county… imagine that. Must be the weather.
Not in the ’sold’ category
LOL… that comment is straight out of Dealio’s playbook. Sales are fine for OC in proportion to it’s size. Ventura is the only county about as small, and look at the difference in sales, 3 1/2 times as many.
http://www.counties.org/default.asp?id=6
I love it when someone says 500K is a high end home. 500K is a low end home. If you can’t afford a 500K home, you have an income problem. Problems in the 500K range is a problem in the low end. The high end starts in the high 1M mark, perhaps higher.
There be lots a folks with them income problems you speak of. Maybe dem prices be to high?
Jimmy2 is right. People shouldn’t give up until they can afford a regular $1M home. Everything else is just for the working class.
I was told a couple of weeks ago, by a friend of mine here, that someone making 350K a year is “middle class” in America. I looked at her eyes to see if she migh have been smoking something..
I think what people would consider low end here in the bubble might be totally different than a lot of other places (most) in the country.
350K is in the neighborhood of middle class. The funny thing is people making a paultry 100K/yr think they are middle class…haha. Good luck making an average living on that!
Gunner, that is the most idiotic statement you have made here. You know $350K is not middle class. Don’t be an ingrate.
Mulli–the truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.
Or in your case, the only way you could afford a $500,000 home was to take out a no down, interest only, stated income loan.
That is how the median became that high, through liar loans.
The true median should be around $300,000.
But with the amount of layoffs and foreclosures flooding the economy, it will overshoot the true median.
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2009/07/option-arms-worse-than-subprime.html?ref=patrick.net
Nothing for permabears or bulls to get excited about. Home prices always tick up in spring. Let’s debate in 4 months when frenzy season and $8k tax credit expires.
I just read the DQNews release. The DQNews article is much more positive than this OC report. Sorry. If you did not buy a beach home in the late 1990s, YOU ARE PRICED OUT FOREVER. Bummer.
Let’s see how Jimmy2’s beloved CdM cottage is doing so far…ouch, -29% YoY. A few more months of that and it’ll be PRICED BACK IN for me at Jimmy2’s foreclosure auction.
How many more months of this until you’re underwater, Jimmy?
Dimmy has been underwater for over a year! That sucker bought at the peak. Buy and hold Dimmy. Remember, CDM never goes down! Haha
Your just like an 8 track tape playing the same old song, “YOU ARE PRICED OUT FOREVER” by the dreamers.
Will you ever say anything original? You might as well just copy and paste the same text in each new blog post. It’s all the same.
How about this
http://www.housingwire.com/2009/07/15/fitch-sees-potential-housing-bottom/
might want to read the whole thing…
The cautious optimism in Fitch’s report echoes a Moody’s report issued Monday, which took a similarly conservative view of recent improvements, noting every positive contributing factor to housing recover seen thus far has an offsetting negative consequence.
Jon,
I know that you don’t have a staff of thousands digging up raw data for you and you’re forced to rely on outside agencies for your data, but isn’t this median price data completely meaningless? Even the agencies themselves are acknowledging this as they explain away the seeming “rise” in the median price.
There’s got to be someone that is tracking prices in dollars/sq. ft. The more you can split it out (region, county, city, neighborhood, house age, # bedrooms), the better, but $/sf for each county would be a great start. I’ve looked and haven’t found this data, but I imagine you and other professional bloggers as having better access to this kind of data than I do.
In other news, I think that the real news in this chart is that the 2 counties with the smallest decreases in year-over-year prices are BY FAR the 2 with the smallest gains in y-o-y sales. The lesson for this market is clearly that THE FASTER THEY FALL, THE FASTER THEY SELL. As evidenced by the sluggish sales numbers, not enough people honestly believe that a house in OC should sell for 3 times (or more!) than a house in the IE, so OC has got a long ways still to fall.
-Darth
P.S. I just noticed that this is Jeff’s article, so restate my opening line for Jeff, not Jon, but the Q is really for both. Bottom line: any blogger that can give me data on price trends that is more meaningful than median price will get my “clicks”.
-Darth
The square foot data comes out every month from DataQuick. The LA Times produces the numbers when they come out, and the OCR produces it in their print version of a monthly economic review. Plus, I will post the data somewhere if I have the YOY numbers. dqnews.com will have it under the monthly LA Times chart when it comes out.
graphix-
Many of the complaints about the median center around the mix of home sales argument. My question to you is don’t you believe the same issue, mix of sales, affects the price/sq ft data? After all, if more homes start selling in the beach communities you would expect them to go for a higher $/sq ft than Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and Stanton. Anyway, let me know your thoughts if you read this.
Yes, different areas will have different $/sf, but these charts are already breaking out by location. What they are NOT breaking out for is home size. Taking a median that includes a bunch of 1-2BR’s one month and only a few 4+BR’s the next month tells us NOTHING about the housing market and the direction of prices.
This is exactly the problem with the median at the moment. We’re getting more homes and bigger homes selling in nicer areas, because prices have fallen and foreclosures have risen in those areas, but the median price would lead us to believe that overall prices are rising and the housing market is improving. There are a lot of knife-catchers out there that are buying houses, because this bad data has led them to believe that houses are once again appreciating.
-Darth
Thanks! You got my “clicks”.
I don’t have the YOY numbers, but I’ll follow this going forward.
-Darth
WTF? Where is the data to support the claim of this article. All I see is the median is up and some quesswork.
Damn!!!! Still batting a thousand!!!
Dealeo: Let’s face a fundamental fact.
In order to sustain current pricing for homes priced at the $600K+ range - lending must be freed up, risk thresholds increased and rate stability increased. That is undisputable.
In 12 months from now, I will continue to be proven 100% accurate on the few predictions I lay claim to. (Actually, so will thousands of other investors and people willing to do the research).
“In order to sustain current pricing for homes priced at the $600K+ range - lending must be freed up, risk thresholds increased and rate stability increased. That is undisputable.”
Wow, that’s one dumbass statement. Hint: “current’ pricing already depends on those things.
High end @ $500,000? Statistically speaking, wouldn’t the top 5% of prices be considered the “end” of something being analyzed? Both top and bottom? You can draw artificial strata definitions, but to call something arbitrarily “high end” would allow some to create false increases and others to create false decreases. Not that anyone would do that to be self serving.
Considering the current market, wouldn’t the “high end” be at about $750,000 to $800,000 and up?
Remember, you can’t pick and choose when you use statistical rules and then change to “local” rules. That is cheating to prove your point or disprove someone else’s…..
Then you are one confused dimwit. If current pricing already depends on it - then how in the hell are you concluding a bottom for all price ranges?
Or are you conceding that only the lower price ranges have bottomed? And that is subjective.
You make absolutely no sense sometimes - you make every attempt to paint a positive picture about local RE - insinuating, but not actually stating, that future price loss risk is low, sales volume is great in all price ranges and prices are actually increasing (in all ranges). Now I do know there’s some sense of self preservation in your presence here - but let’s be real. Either reality supports a price bottom in all price ranges or it does not. Unless you are dreaming - homes priced above $650K that fall in price will eventually push the current quality-level of home in the $500K price range downward in price. Hence - the drain.
Better homes priced at lower prices - will open up the flood gates to higher volume in the $500K-$600K price range. BUT PRICES ARE STILL DROPPING - which is the damn frickin’ point.
Geez louise - any reason you avoid direct reasoning?
foreclosures across the country are rising faster than the space shuttle– yep the bottoms in alright- no ifs ands or buts about it
this is a knifecatchers dream come true– go grab up all those great
bargains there folks– theres no way you can lose money buying now
its a sure thing–
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHAbmgVoHjA4
With 111 million households in America, 1.5 Million foreclosures is like peeing in the ocean. Hardly any effect. Again, you miss the big picture and report only a biased opinion on your doom and gloom.
If you go thru the trouble of printing this, why don’t you mention there will be 1.5M opportunities for the savy and wise investor to pickup a smoking deal on the best investment in the world.
RE won’t recover anytime soon especially with increasing pressure on the high end, which pushes everything else down along with it. Should be another up day tomorrow for stocks (following huge gains the past couple of days) with IBM posting impressive earnings, although Google earnings were OK, so maybe Nasdaq increase to be somewhat muted tomorrow. Those who purchased a few months ago are up 30-300%. You can’t get that return on RE in a few months…
why are my posts being held for days…weeks? Not able to have a critical eye on your content OCR?