La Jolla Real Estate Market
Jun 2nd
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An affluent community along the Pacific Ocean’s shores, La Jolla, California, lies in San Diego, along the coastline and about 12 miles north of downtown San Diego. The area is a large and popular community in the San Diego region and has a population of more than 40,000. Because the community is full of wealthy residents and because it located along the coast, affording residents beautiful and highly desirable beachfront properties, La Jolla real estate is expensive. In 2009, its home had the second-highest price per square foot of any area in San Diego. Due to its high prices, however, the La Jolla market has seen substantial drops in prices since the economy began to suffer in the U.S. because some argue the market was too overheated.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune annual zip code chart, there were 258 single-family homes and 304 condos sold in La Jolla during 2009. The price per square foot for homes was $593 in 2009, down nearly 14% from 2008, when it was $686. Condos saw a median price per square foot of $387, down 10% from a year earlier, when it was $430.
In December, the median price for a home sold in La Jolla was $1.32 million, a 1.7% increase year-over-yaer. The average price, however, fell 11.2% to $1.72 million. There were 28 sales, and La Jolla homes for sale spent an average of 121 days on the market before selling. The condo market in December in La Jolla saw an average price of just over $555,000, down 17% annually and a median price of $525,000, up 7.6% year-over-year. There were 31 condos sold during the month and they spent an average of 82 days on the market before selling.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune monthly zip code chart, thus far 2010 has been kinder on the home market, as the price per square foot had risen in March an annual 6? to $656 from $619. There were 29 homes sold during the month. The condo market, however, continues to struggle, as the median price per square foot was down more than 15% to $384 from $454 year-over-year. There were 34 condos sold during the month.
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Scotts Valley Real Estate
Jun 1st
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About 30 miles south of San Jose in the Silicon Valley area of northern California, Scotts Valley is a smaller city, home to fewer than 15,000. It is north of Monterey Bay and lies in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, offering a bit of all kinds of geography. Residents here have incomes higher than average, with median annual household income of around $75,000, and the Scotts Valley real estate is priced accordingly: more expensive than average but quite affordable in terms of the San Jose area.
The real estate market in Scotts Valley has suffered from the contagion of the widespread recession and its effects throughout the country. Foreclosures have risen, as has inventory while prices have fallen. However, falling prices has allowed some to buy homes in this market who couldn’t have previously afforded it. During December, at the end of 2009, there were nine new listings of Scotts Valley homes for sale, bringing the total monthly inventory to 61, down slightly from one year ago, when it was 66, but down from 97 three months ago in September.
December accounted for nine closed sales in Scotts Valley. Those homes sold after spending an average of 107 days on the market first. Three months prior, in September, there were 14 sales, and a year ago just six. In December 2008, homes were spending 52 days on the market before selling, while that figure was 70 in September.
Prices have continued to suffer, and were quite lower at the end of 2009 than they were at the end of 2008: Homes sold in Scotts Valley in December commanded an average price of $750,888 and a median price of $700,000. In September, these figures were $930,428 and $787,500, respectively. One year ago, however, they were much higher, at $914,916 and $940,000.
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Irvine Real Estate Market
Jun 1st
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A planned city developed in the 1960s and incorporated in 1971, Irvine, California, is one of the larger cities in Orange County, with a population of more than 200,000. The city is located just minutes from the Pacific Ocean’s many beautiful beaches and there are several colleges and universities located within Irvine as well as a number of technology companies. The city is quite affluent, especially for a city of its size. In 2007, Irvine’s annual median household income was measured to be nearly $99,000, making it the seventh-most wealthy city in the U.S. with a population over 65,000. Likewise, the Irvine real estate market tends to be in the upper range of the county, with most prices currently in the $500,000 to $700,000 range.
Irvine has eight zip codes, and housing statistics can vary among the various neighborhoods within the city. According to the Orange County Register’s annual zip code chart for 2009, each of the eight zip codes ended 2009 with median prices lower than what they were at the end of 2008, with declines ranging from as little as 1.7% to as high as 12.1%. Prices ranged from as high as $725,000 (where the median was down 12.1%) to as low as $450,000 (with a 1.7% decline). Meanwhile, sales volume was up in four zip codes but down in four others. Two zip codes saw double-digit increases in sales activity, up 37% and 38% to 254 sales and 231 sales, respectively. The zip code with the largest drop in sales activity saw volume down 6.4% with 161 Irvine homes for sale sold.
More recently, as 2010 has begun, the Irvine market has been off to a fresh start and as recently as March, the city’s real estate market was showing much more positive signs. According to the Orange County Register’s monthly zip code chart, the median price for homes sold in Irvine was up year-over-year in all but one zip code, and even in that area, it was down only a mere 1.8%. Median prices in March ranged from $430,000 to $847,500. Meanwhile, March showed significant progress in the city’s sales volume with every single one of the Irvine’s eight zip codes seeing an increase in sales. The number of sales ranged from 15 to 59. Increases ranged from 25% to 483%, showing that the market is seeing robust activity as homebuyers rush to get into the market before prices are too high again.
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Livermore real estate market
May 14th
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The Livermore real estate market, a subset of the larger Alameda County real estate market, seems to be rallying, although that prediction may be premature. According to a March 11, 2010 article in the Contra Costa Times, “The number of East Bay homeowners who received a default notice, the first step in the foreclosure process, was lower in February than a year ago, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the foreclosure problem is going away.” The piece, composed by Eve Mitchell, continued to state that “Observers point out the improved numbers shown in the monthly report due to be released today by www.realtytrac.com continue to be linked to federal government programs and state legislation designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The upshot is that a true market snapshot is not emerging of local and national foreclosure activity, which includes default notices, scheduled auction sales and bank repossessions.”
In general, sales of Livermore homes for sale slipped slightly in February, according to a March 19, 2010 article by DQNews and the NuWire Investor. The article found that “Bay Area home sales were subpar again in February, dipping below the year-ago level for the second straight month as some potential buyers worried about job security, some couldn’t get financing and others found a thin inventory of homes for sale. the median price paid rose year-over-year for the fifth consecutive month, mainly because fewer low-cost foreclosures have sold and more higher-end homes have turned over this year compared with last, a real estate information service reported.” The piece continued to find that “A total of 4,987 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow in the nine-county Bay Area last month.”
Sale prices for Livermore real estate for sale, however, rallied slightly, according to a March 19, 2010 article in the Contra Costa Times. According to the piece by Eve Mitchell, “Bay Area home sale prices rose for the fifth-straight month while the number of homes sold fell for the second-consecutive month on a year-to-year basis as some buyers are finding it harder to get into a home due to worries about job security, a lack of inventory and difficulty getting financing.”
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Salt Lake City real estate market
May 13th
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The Salt Lake City real estate market was especially hard hit by the economic recession, and continues to face some problems in the first half of 2010. According to a March 26, 2010 article in DS News, the situation has become so dire that a full-fledged Real Estate Foreclosure Center has opened in the state of Utah. The piece noted that “In an effort to help distressed homeowners stay in their homes, the center offers free education and training on a multitude of topics such as loan modification services. And it provides approved legal counsel to further assist these at-risk homeowners is their specific situations.” The article, written by Brittany Dunn, continued to say that “The center’s foreclosure team also provides short sale options and knowledge of the foreclosure process. According to RCI, its foreclosure specialists have short sales and foreclosure resource designations, which less than 5 percent of agents have.”
Salt Lake City homes for sale have declined slightly, according to a March 23, 2010 article in the Salt Lake City Headlines Examiner. The piece found that “Existing home sales down 0.6% in a row, this is the lowest level seen since July of 2009, according [to] a report released Tuesday from the National Association of Realtors. Previously occupied homes dropped 0.6% in February. The median home price was $165,000 down 2% from one year ago.” The article, written by Marcl Stone, continued to say that “And many housing markets around the country showed increases. Some areas of the country had large sales increases in February and other areas were down considerably.”
One March 31, 2010 article from Real Estate News Utah proposed a formula for growth in the Salt Lake City real estate market. According to that article, “What’s the best medicine for a rebound in Utah’s commercial real estate market? More jobs…Naturally, there are other factors besides jobs that will influence the recovery of the commercial real estate market.
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Houston real estate market
May 12th
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Despite record foreclosure levels, the other indicators in the Houston real estate market remain resilient and generally strong. According to a March 25, 2010 article in the DS News, “Texas claimed the biggest increase in foreclosures during the month of February with a rise of 35.3 percent, according to new data published this week by ForeclosureListings.com…While their overall numbers were lower than the Sin City, in Phoenix, Arizona, foreclosures jumped 34.61 percent last month, and in Houston, Texas, they surged 37.80 percent.” The piece, composed by Carrie Bay, continued to state that “Today one in every 418 homes in the United States has been hit with a foreclosure filing, topping over 300,000 filings for the 12th straight month and brining the nationwide total to almost 1.4 million.”
The prices of Houston homes for sale has been holding steady, according to a March 19, 2010 article in the Houston Business Journal. The piece found that “For the past two years, economists have pointed out that Houston housing prices were immune to the worst of the real estate collapse. A report issued Friday by IHS Global Insight puts an exclamation point on that observation. Across the country, house prices in extremely overvalued U.S. metropolitan areas declined nearly 37 percent on average between 2005, the peak of the real estate bubble, and the end of 2009 when prices stabilized, according to IHS’s fourth quarter 2009 report.” According to James Diffley, director of IHS Global Insight’s Regional Services Group, “The high risk of a home price collapse that we reported in 2005 was borne out, and the subsequent price declines across metropolitan areas is very closely correlated with our valuation metric.”
A local trend for Houston real estate for sale was reflected in the larger Southern real estate market, according to a March 23, 2010 article in the New York Times. That piece, also published by the Associated Press, stated that “Last month, 113,000 homes were sold in the region, but the median sales price dipped 4 percent from a year ago to $139,600, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.”
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Scottsdale Real Estate Update
Mar 22nd
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The high-priced area of Scottsdale, Arizona, found itself suffering a heady blow from the effects after the bursting of the U.S. housing market bubble. Residents have seen the values of their homes fall amid the tumbling of the economy, and many have found themselves in foreclosure after being unable to make high or reset mortgage payments, leaving a larger inventory on the Scottsdale real estate market.
According to local realtor Matt Pellerin, prices are still suffering. In February, the average asking price in North Scottsdale was $690,500, a 7.8% decline from January and a 7.5% decline year-over-year. In South Scottsdale, price declines were even steeper. The asking price in February was $234,000, a decline from the prior month of almost 11% and a year-over-year change of 14%. Sale prices were down too: In South Scottsdale, the average sale price was almost $245,000, a nearly 2% decrease from January and a 3.7% drop from 2009. In North Scottsdale, the the sale price declines were steeper: The average price was around $632,000, down 6.45% from January and down more than 8% from a year prior.
Days on the market was one area where improvement was seen. In South Scottsdale, Scottsdale homes for sale spent an average of 94 days on the market before selling, basically steady with January’s figure of 92 days, and down markedly from last year’s figure of 136 days. In North Scottsdale, those figure were 175 days for February of this year, down from 185 the month prior and 192 a year earlier. There were 269 sales in North Scottsdale in February, up 50% from the previous year. South Scottsdale saw an even higher increase in activity, with 53 sales, up 96% from 2009.
The condo market showed less wild swings. In South Scottsdale, there were 74 sales, up almost 90% from 2009. The average sales price, of around $162,000, was up 3% from the previous year, while the average asking price of more than $171,000 was up 3%. North Scottsdale’s condos showed a similar surge in sales, up 140% to 96, but a further fall in prices. The average price was down almost 26% in February, to around $180,000.
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Fountain Valley Real Estate
Mar 15th
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A city of about 60,000 located in the high-priced Southern California region, Fountain Valley has seen its market for real estate take some wild dives over the past couple of years amid housing market crashes, recession-induced layoffs and foreclosures and overstocked inventory.
In the early stages of 2010, it seems that Fountain Valley real estate is still struggling to climb back. According to DataQuick Information Systems, which tracks housing statistics for all cities in Orange County, in January of this year, there were 30 homes sold, a decrease in sales volume of 9.1% from the same period one year ago. Prices, too, are still not where they once were.
In January, the median price for a home sold in Fountain Valley was $560,500, down 9.6% from January of 2009. There were more than 200 homes on the market, but the city also had a stock of more than 260 foreclosed homes.
For a three-week period ending Feb. 16, according to the Orange County Register, Fountain Valley homes for sale showed slight improvement in pricing, with a median up to $570,000, just 3% off prices from a year earlier. But sales volume was down further than in January, with 38 homes sold, a decrease of 13.6% year-over-year. This high-priced market will continue to have figures well below those of the likes of 2006 and 2007, and it remains to be seen whether those prices can be reached again in the near term.
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Springfield Real Estate
Dec 24th
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Increase in demand, the federal homebuyer’s tax credit, low interest rates, and affordability of housing are some of the major factors that Springfield real estate experts believe have played a major role in promoting the recent improvements made in the Springfield real estate market in Illinois. Although median prices are still below the previous year’s levels, the decline has slowed and prices have stabilized. However, it is the significant increase in home sales that have given Springfield real estate experts optimistic views of the future of the real estate in Springfield. Although recovery may still be months off, many local realtors feel that the end of the Springfield real estate struggles are near.
According to PR Newswire, Illinois has posted a 64 percent increase in home sales between November of 2008 and 2009. Many Springfield real estate experts have attributed the major improvements seen over the past few months to an increase in demand and consumer confidence, as well as low interest rates and affordable housing options. Many realtors have also noted that the federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers was also a major incentive for homebuyers, especially towards the end of November when many people rushed to close on properties before the original expiration date of the tax credit. Since the deadline for the federal tax credit has been extended to April of next year, many realtors are hopeful that the credit will continue to spur Springfield real estate activity and promote further improvement of the real estate market. Real estate experts have also noted that the unemployment rate in Illinois has also stabilized, even declining slightly over the past month, suggesting that as job security becomes less of a concern, more people will be willing to invest in the Springfield real estate market.
The Real Estate Rama in Illinois has also reported that the Springfield real estate market is forecasted to continue to experience an increase in sales but a slight decrease in median sales prices, although prices are expected to hit bottom sometime next year. The federal tax credit is also expected to increase the momentum of the real estate in Springfield, supporting significant improvements in the future. However, many experts believe that unemployment will be the main obstacle in preventing the recovery of the Springfield real estate market.
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San Francisco real estate update 2009
Nov 24th
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San Francisco real estate has seen lackluster interest and fluctuating prices for a few years to the erratic economic conditions caused by the global recession affecting real estate markers not only in the United States but around the world. Steven Brown of the San Francisco Business Times wrote on November 11, 2009, that “more than a quarter of homes listed for sale in San Francisco have had their asking prices cut in the last year, with a whopping $66.1 million in total price reductions for the city.”
Additionally, according to Trulia, Inc., a real estate market analysis company, “28 percent of listed homes in San Francisco have had their prices cut in the last year. That puts San Francisco at No. 27 on a list of the top 50 U.S. cities ranked by percentage of homes that have been discounted.” The report also announced that “luxury homes costing $2 million or more have been the hardest hit across the country but are responsible for a quarter of the total of $28.1 billion in home price cuts.” These staggering figures spell financial hardship for many previous owners or mortgage holders who have had difficulty with their properties in one of the most expensive cities to live in.
Owners of San Francisco homes for sale are not happy at all with the latest figures released by realtor associations and RealtyTrac. As reported on November 18, 2009, via Yahoo!’s real estate portal, there were almost 2,000 homes for sale on the market at a median price of $839,000, a decrease in over six percent compared to the previous month. Foreclosed houses didn’t suffer as badly. Based on about 1,700 property foreclosures, there was only a 3.3 percent decrease in price, dropping the median to a tad over $524,000.
There is some relief, though. For buyers interested in real estate in San Francisco and who would like to help rebuild the local real estate market, the Mayor’s Office of Housing has created a down-payment assistance program to help facilitate homeownership for people with low and moderate incomes. The San Francisco Chronicle announced on November 13, 2009, that the program would be expanded to help stimulate sales in the city.
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