DQNews Archived Article

Bay Area home sales off

by Real Estate Analyst John Karevoll
October, 1996

La Jolla, CA.— Bay Area home sales declined slightly for the first time in over a year as current sales counts caught up to high year-ago numbers, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 4,504 resale houses were sold in the nine-county Bay Area in September. That was down 22.7 percent from 5,830 for August and down 1.3 percent from 4,561 for September last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

The decline from August to September is normal for the season. The year-over-year decline was the first since July 1995 when year-over-year sales declined 14.8 percent. "The Bay Area is still in a strong sales surge, but rising sales counts inevitably level off. Bay Area price trends are certainly the envy of the rest of California," said Donald L. Cohn, DataQuick CEO.

The median price paid for a resale house was $236,000 in September, up 2.6 percent from the same month a year ago. Home prices have increased every month this year, and have regained most of the value lost during the early 1990s.

DataQuick monitors all real estate purchasing and financing nationwide, and provides information to consumers, lending institutions, title companies and industry analysts. Sales in other home categories were also up last month. Sales of resale condos have been increasing since September last year and sales of newly-built homes have been up since October last year, DataQuick reported.

Resale houses

	#Sold	#Sold	Pct.	Med($K)	Med($K)	Pct.
	Sep-95	Sep-96	Chng.	Sep-95	Sep-96	Chng.
Alameda	904	877	-3	$200	$208	4
Contra Costa	820	769	-6.2	$207	$210	1.4
Marin	212	218	2.8	$320	$315	-1.6
Napa	77	67	-13	$172	$170	-1.2
San Francisco	272	270	-0.7	$261	$270	3.4
San Mateo	448	530	18.2	$298	$305	2.3
Santa Clara	1,142	1,125	-1.5	$257	$265	3.1
Solano	302	273	-9.6	$150	$133	-11.3
Sonoma	384	375	-2.3	$190	$185	-2.6
Bay Area	4,561	4,504	-1.3	$230	$236	2.6

Source: DataQuick Information Systems

For more information call John Karevoll (909)867-9534

Copyright © 1996 DataQuick Information Systems.
All rights reserved.